


Three Kids On A Raft

by hexagonstorm, rainyyweather



Category: Kingdom Hearts
Genre: Adventures in loss and apocalypse, An attempt to fully explore KH's crossover potential, And also other people being gay too, Angst, Canon Reimagining, Choose Not To Warn about a lot of things, Humor, M/M, Many plot differences and complications, New non-canon worlds, Slow Burn, a gayer and more in-depth interpretation of Kingdom Hearts, boys being gay
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-11-11
Updated: 2019-12-15
Packaged: 2021-01-27 07:23:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 88,748
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21388312
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hexagonstorm/pseuds/hexagonstorm, https://archiveofourown.org/users/rainyyweather/pseuds/rainyyweather
Summary: When a world dies, and you're thrown into a nightmarish conflict you hardly understand, all you can do is cling as tightly as possible to whoever you still have on your side... and pray that maybe, just maybe, they'll do the same thing.(A reimagining of Kingdom Hearts, with a focus on idiot teen romance and adventure. Follows some of the basic structure with a lot of changes along the way, big and small. New FF and Disney characters, new worlds, and new twists.)
Relationships: Riku/Sora (Kingdom Hearts), Some of which are not M/M, Various untagged relationships
Comments: 19
Kudos: 16





	1. Sunset on Destiny Islands

**Author's Note:**

> This fic has Choose Not To Warn in two places for a reason, and that reason is that we have chosen not to warn. Please remember that.
> 
> We have two main reasons for the various things that are different from canon Kingdom Hearts. First, to make the story make more sense as prose; a lot of things about Kingdom Hearts work beautifully because it's an adventure game, but when you try to present any of it in the very specific way that a novelization requires, you run into problems. You run into more problems than you ever dreamed existed. And second, frankly, there are some characters/worlds/things in Kingdom Hearts that were fun to play through but we just didn't find interesting to explore in this fic. We have nothing against that content, we just wanted to do something different, so don't be shocked to see different characters, new plot beats, and a lot of expanded backstories in various places. We ask only that you keep in mind that we've put a lot of thought into all of this, especially some of the weirder and more surprising parts, and if something doesn't make sense taken with canon, please assume we made that decision intentionally. We promise we are not being careless with lore.
> 
> The fic was originally tagged for both Sokai and Soriku because there are elements of both and we originally wanted the endgame to be a surprise, but we've decided we want it to be more overt (even though it's still slow-burn), so we're just changing it to say Soriku. There are other relationships, though, and over the course of the story you will be seeing F/F, M/M, and M/F relationships develop.
> 
> We want Kairi to feel like a genuine third protagonist, but her presence in the KH1 part of the story is a lot less than Sora and Riku's (at first), though she has a vastly larger presence than in canon, and while we do have a romance arc in mind for her, it will take much, much longer to develop, and will play out in parts of the story where she has a genuinely equal share of screentime.
> 
> If all of that sounds good to you, great! We hope you a have good time exploring this wonderful, horrible multiverse with us. May your heart be your guiding key.
> 
> \- hexagonstorm and rainyyweather, co-authors

You wake up with your face smooshed into the sand, hot and rough and grainy against your cheek, with your head full of fuzz and half-memories.

What _ was _ that dream you were having? You were in... some weird place, all dark shadows and huge panes of stained glass, like a church without walls or a ceiling. And there were _ things _ there too, weren't there? Weird, eerie things, swarming at the edges of the dark.

But what was that dream even about? Dang it, you wish you were better at remembering dreams. They always feel so important, and you're lucky if anything is left of them five minutes later other than just a vague impression.

"Sora! Wake up already!"

You blink and shake the last bits of sleep from your head like a dog that just got out of the water, sit upright and look out at the water. Riku's little kayak boat is drifting toward the shore, and he sounds exasperated enough that this probably wasn't the first time he yelled to you today. Kairi's there, too, balanced on the back and carrying a huge bag in her lap.

Oh yeah, _ that's _ what you were doing today. You're finishing the raft! Well, hopefully you're finishing it. You're at least gonna try.

Riku gets the kayak tied up at the docks, and both of them hop off, Riku running ahead to the beach. He looks so excited that it kinda reminds you of when you were both a lot younger.

"Let's get to work," he says instantly. "If we really push ourselves, maybe we can take the boat on its maiden voyage tonight."

"It's not a boat, it's a raft." You can't believe this is even still a discussion.

"A raft is flat. It's raft-shaped. This is a boat."

"It's not! If you tie a bunch of wooden stuff together, that's a raft, and this is like, three boats tied together, so it's a raft made of boats."

"Oh my God, Sora, we're not having this argument again. It's a boat. Rafts are stupid. If we got on a raft out there, we'd all die, which is why we're making a _ boat." _

"I think it can be a boat _ and _ a raft," Kairi says. Riku rolls his eyes.

"You know what? If we finish the thing today, then I don't care what it is. I'm ready to get this show on the road."

Kairi stares at Riku for a second, a weird look on her face that you can't quite pin down. Then she sighs and sets her bag down on the sand.

"Hey, Kairi, what's in the bag?" Whatever it is, you probably all planned for it, but remembering plans isn't exactly your specialty.

"Oh, I bought us some food and other stuff from the store. My grandma gave me some money for doing well at school, so I was able to get a pretty healthy selection of rations.”

She holds it open, revealing a bunch of different snacks you don’t recognize, you guess because they’re all supposed to be good for you.

“See, there's stuff from a couple of different food groups, and I made sure to bring things with lots of vitamin C, too."

You just nod. Somehow, you don't think you'll all be out there long enough to worry about scurvy, but it's probably good that somebody's putting this much thought into everything anyway.

"I'll carry that," you say, because it's definitely too heavy for her, and if you _ ask _ her if she wants help, she'll just say no and then wear herself out trying too hard. It's not a super long way to the cave where you've been keeping your raft-boat parts, but it's a lot longer when you're hauling supplies.

"Oh... are you sure that's-"

"Yeah, of course." You cut her off before she can overthink it and take the bag before she can get any dumb ideas. "Alright then, let's go finish this raft."

"This _ boat. _ Hey, Sora, race you there!"

"Wait, what - aw, c'mon, I'm carrying stuff!" But it's too late. He's already sprinting off into the distance.

Oh well. It's not like you were going to win anyway.

* * *

A couple of hours later, things are actually going great. You've got a bunch of the big soda bottles cleaned out so they can hold fresh water, and the food is packed up pretty good.

The raft is three big canoes and a sail that you're going to rig together into one really crude catamaran. The canoes are canoes you saved up for and bought from people who had busted canoes they wanted to get rid of, and you've been keeping them hidden here in your scary cave while you fixed them up.

The sail's from a totally different busted boat, but Riku called the seller out on the fact that it was the only usable part of the whole thing, and he ended up getting them to sell you just that part. Riku can be pretty convincing when he needs to be.

Everything's almost ready to be assembled, now. It's pretty exciting, even if it's always kinda weird working on stuff here in the scary cave. The scary cave is always weird, though.

None of the other kids want to go anywhere near the scary cave, so it pretty much belongs to the three of you; the door in there freaks people out, and it's dark and spooky, and It Just Feels Weird In There. But Riku's never seemed to notice anything off about it at all, and you think being in a scary place is kinda fun actually, and Kairi... Well, Kairi's at least a good sport about it.

Then again, Kairi's a good sport about everything.

The sealant you've been slathering on the boats is finally dry, so everybody hauls them out onto the beach to test them in the water. The other kids, who have been hanging out here in the sunlight where there are zero scary doors, are just kinda loitering on the beach, practicing with their swords and/or other weapons as usual. You wave to Tidus when you happen to catch his eye.

"Great. We definitely needed a bunch of random people knowing about the boat," Riku mumbles unhappily, and now it's your turn to roll your eyes. What does he think is gonna happen? That they'll tell on you or something? No way.

"Hey, guys, what are you up to?"

Oh, wow, where did Vanille come from? You'd swear she was all the way over there swinging around her weird staff thing, but here she is.

"We're testing our canoes for leaks! Then we're gonna tie 'em together and make a raft!" Out of the corner of your eye, Riku turns to glare at you like you've just betrayed him somehow.

"Oh, cool. What're you gonna do with it?"

"Ah, y'know... raft stuff."

She nods wisely.

"Need any help testing them?"

"No," Riku says firmly, at the exact second you say "Sure, thanks!" Vanille waves over Tidus and Rinoa, who wander down the beach to see what's going on.

"Heyy, you guys making a raft?" Tidus gets it immediately.

"I think that's more of a boat," Rinoa says without missing a beat.

"What're you gonna do with it? Rafting?"

"Yes, Tidus," Riku says. "We're going rafting on our boat."

"Seems a little counter-intuitive, but I guess I shouldn't judge," Vanille says. Riku shoots her a dark glare. "So where are you all headed?"

"Around," Riku says vaguely. "Nowhere special."

Tidus looks disappointed. Vanille and Rinoa immediately exchange a Look.

"Anyway, Sora, we need to figure out a good way to stress test these boat parts. Is there anything heavy around here?"

"We could help, you know," Vanille says, maybe a little bit smugly.

"That'd be _ great," _ you say, before anybody picks a fight. "Maybe we could go two to a canoe? At that point there's no _ way _ any of them would sink."

"I don't know, whichever one has Tidus's skull in it seems a little endangered," Vanille says. Tidus looks horribly wounded.

"Come on, now," Rinoa says, "Everybody's skull is a good skull in its own way. He needs that thickness, for sports." Tidus throws a ball at her head and she ducks quickly out of the way.

Everybody splits up into groups of two, kinda loosely calculated for an even weight spread, and you all sit down in the canoes to see if you die. Nobody does! It's great! It's always fun to hang out with the older kids, too. They're all way too cool for you, except maybe Tidus, but even he's good at sports or something.

Eventually Rinoa's dog comes sprinting along the beach and hurls his soft body into the canoe Kairi's in so she can pet him and say dog things. Then Riku declares that specific canoe has now been _ extra- _ stress tested, and makes everyone trade Angelo around until _ all _ the canoes can definitely handle two people and one dog.

Even then, nobody dies.

* * *

_ Two months ago _

Until recently the three of you were constantly on the lookout for busted canoes to buy. The first two canoes, you got mostly through Riku carefully leveraging various connections that wouldn't involve people telling your parents about what you were doing with canoes. The last one, though... the last one was hard.

But eventually, you stumbled on a newspaper ad for a canoe with a hole in the bottom. The only problem was that it was _ two thousand munny, _ and needless to say, none of you had two thousand munny. All of you put together did not have two thousand munny. All of you put together had _ sixty _ munny, because you had gone to the movies the day before and _ spent _ sixty munny.

Now, that would've been a problem in the best of circumstances, but this wasn't that. Not only was it two thousand munny, the guy selling it needed it to be picked up the same day, or else he was gonna chop it up and use it for firewood, like someone who didn't value canoes _ at all. _

It took all three of you brainstorming for at least forty minutes to even start coming up with ideas, and you're proud to say that the first hint of your solution came from _ your _ incredible brain.

"Guys, I've got it," you said suddenly as Kairi picked at one of her peeling nails and Riku stared at the ceiling. _ "Pirate Encounter." _

You had to explain that, of course, because those words put together really didn't mean anything useful to anybody but you. See, it was a really busy day for families in the village square, which just happens to be near Kairi's house, and people busk over there all the time.

Your brilliant idea, befitting a pirate, maybe even one who could be encountered, was that you could come up with some stupid thing that people might pay you munny to let their kids do. People love taking their kids to squares, and if there's anything kids love, they love_ pirates, _ and together, those kids and parents would probably even have munny.

It was also great because you could probably make pirate costumes out of stuff you already had, because come on, pirate costumes aren't exactly the hardest thing to make, especially if you only have to convince children.

"That's brilliant," Riku said, banging his fist on the floorboards and startling Kairi. "We could swordfight each other, and then for just 25 munny, _ your very own child _ can fight their choice of me or you. We'll give them a good show of it but let them win, strike a victory pose, and then _ Kairi _ snaps a _ picture _ with that fancy camera she has, and the parents can _ choose _ to pay an extra 25 munny to keep it."

That seems a little bit dubious, but it also seems like something that'll work.

"I still have my face painting kit from that time we had to raise money for Riku's healing bill," Kairi said. "Maybe I could do, um... pirate... face painting? Like a cool skull, or maybe something else that children want pirates to like?"

"Yeah, that's great," you said, extremely proud of your very smart friends. "Ooh, and we could sell _ pirate snacks." _

"What are pirate snacks going to be?" Kairi asked, a little bit confused, and you realized you didn't actually know, but luckily Riku had the solution ready to go.

"They're whatever snacks we already have in our houses, except we take them out of the package, give them pirate names, and mark them up."

Kairi didn't seem super excited about the marking up part, or the complicated legality of it all, but she at least agreed that it might make children smile, and you guess that was enough.

"Hmm... but what if people ask questions? Or if they're just, you know, mean?" You don't like to think that people would be choose to be mean, but it happens.

"We'll tell them the truth,” Kairi said. “We're saving up for a boat. As long as we don't explain that it's _ this _ boat, we'll sound very responsible."

"Parents _ love _ responsibility," you said. "It's foolproof."

And it was.

"We'll put out a hat too," Riku said. "In case anybody just likes sword fighting and wants to contribute. It's not likely, but it can't hurt. Maybe somebody gullible like Kairi's grandma will come by."

"My grandma's not gullible," Kairi mumbled, but she didn't seem very sure about that.

Anyway, Pirate Encounter went pretty well. You all did your things! There was a cool sword fight, Kairi was a pretty good manager and of course she painted a mean animal face and/or cool skull, it was a nice day out, and people _ totally _ gave you munny.

Vanille even came by once and thought you were all very cute and gave you like 200 munny just to be nice, which Riku seemed sort of resentful of, but was not willing to turn down, but most of your money came from real actual customers. You all felt Cool, and Mildly Successful.

There was a little bit of an upset at one point when a little girl came by wanting to fight a girl pirate, and you had to signal Kairi through a sword fight with a little girl by pantomiming stuff at her. It was difficult and she looked like she was gonna pass out from stress, but your friendship was strong enough and you made it work.

You were so proud of Kairi, and proud of your awesome friendship. There was hugging and everything. It was a great day.

Then, just when things were winding down, some jerk stole your hat, which is where the tips were _ and _ where you were keeping all the _ other _ munny! You and Riku had to chase the guy down halfway across town, jumping over fences and running through an old abandoned building Riku was inexplicably familiar with. But that was actually kinda cool, too.

And you did it! You caught the guy, and you fought him a little and won even though he was older and scrappy and punched Riku in the ear so hard some sparks of light shot out.

You stood there, holding your hard-earned hard-returned munny hat, sweaty and out of breath and triumphant, and you were so pumped that you hugged Riku out of nowhere, and Riku was so pumped he didn't even make it weird.

By then the crowds were winding down, but you still squeezed in a little bit more Pirate Encounter, and that was good too.

Then you all realized as the sun began to set that it was time to either go get the canoe or give up and let it be "put down", as Riku chose to put it for some reason, but you didn't actually have all the munny. In fact, you didn't even quite have _ half _ the munny.

You all went there anyway, hoping if you gave it to the guy he'd compromise and let you pay the other half tomorrow or next week or something, so you could get some more Pirate Encounter done, but when you got there you discovered a man who had never even heard of sympathy.

Except Riku did some quick thinking and Kairi did some quick not-getting-in-his-way, and they managed to convince him to sell you the canoe for 953 munny and some wood to be brought over later with a wild story about how Kairi was totally Riku's depressed adopted cousin who just came from another world and you desperately needed to show her the islands were good, actually, and a place where refugees could still be happy.

You were _ so _ proud of your cool friends and their problem-solving skills, who even had a cool friendship with each other, and the two of them even awkwardly hugged afterward, Kairi looking really nervous and Riku looking like somebody was making him touch a weird bug.

(So, you guess _ they're _ never getting married after all, which is kind of a relief if you're being honest.)

You and Riku had to chop a bunch of wood the next day, but it was worth it. You had your last canoe.

The three of you had to get it to the island yourself, so you tied it up between your boat and Riku's boat while Kairi sat in it and told you where to go. It was really dumb and you can't believe nobody drowned, but it worked.

You paddled those canoes out to the island, and you thought about how happy you were to be accomplishing this cool stuff with your cool friends who were awesome and who loved you and each other, and the sea smelled like adventure, and you knew that together you could take on the world.

* * *

_ Today, again _

All the canoes float through the stress testing just fine, so you drag them up onto the beach and get started assembling the rig. Riku knows the most about this stuff so he takes the lead; you help and do whatever boat repair stuff he tells you to do while Kairi finishes painting the sail.

(You think she feels a little bad about not knowing how to do any of the rest of it, but come on, you can't have a cool raft without a cool sail! That's just obvious.)

And then, somehow, against all odds... it's over. After all this time, all this hard work, the raft is finally finished. The three of you tie it up at the docks, and you lag behind in the scary cave a little because somebody has to go get the water for today's test run.

As you're rooting through your supplies, you hear a weird noise behind you, and the hairs on your neck stand up.

"Who's there?" It must just be Riku or Kairi, but why wouldn't they say something?

"I've come to see the door," says a voice you've never heard before. You finally turn around. There's a guy there - at least, it sounds like a guy - standing half-silhouetted in the mouth of the cave. He's wearing a weird brown robe and you can't see his face.

"...Huh?" Why does he care about the door in the scary cave? It never opens. You kinda think it might not even be a real door.

"This world has been connected," he says.

"Uh, what are you talking about?" You wish you could see his face. It's making you feel really weird to not be able to see it.

Also, it's weird for a grown-up to be out here. This island pretty much belongs to the kids, usually.

"Tied to the darkness... soon to be completely eclipsed."

"Okay, well, could you maybe stop freaking me out like this?" And maybe he could actually say something _ to _ you. You really don't like people who just talk _ at _ you. It makes you feel weirdly helpless, like nothing you do actually matters.

"You do not yet know what lies beyond the door, do you, child?"

Well, that's better, except that it's really creepy and doesn't make any sense. Unless...

...No way. Could it be?

"...Are you... from another world?"

"There is so very much to learn. You understand so little, marooned on this tiny speck of light."

"O... oh yeah?" You try your best to sound confident and defiant, like Riku would. "Well, you'll see. I'm gonna get out and learn what's out there!"

"A meaningless effort," he says. "One who knows nothing can understand nothing. Nor can he even find a chance to try. Such is the way of things."

"Listen, I'm getting real tired of this, okay? Why don't you go be rude to somebody else? I'm a little busy here, if you haven't noticed!"

You're done wasting time talking to this weirdo jerk, so you turn your back on him and finish loading your satchel full of water bottles.

When you turn back around, he's gone. _ That's _ not weird at all.

...Oh well. At least you don't have to listen to his dumb voice anymore.

* * *

"Sora, we need a name for the boat," Riku says as soon as he sees you again. You're honestly a little relieved to have a distraction.

"You're right, we _ do _ need to name the raft," you say. Riku sighs theatrically.

"I've been thinking about it, and the _ boat _ needs a dignified name. Something like... _ The Highwind." _

"That sounds like one of those party boats rich people have in movies," you say, glancing to Kairi to see if she agrees. She doesn't say anything, but you can tell by the look on her face that she totally gets it. "I say we call the raft _ Excalibur." _

"Where did you even come up with a name like that?"

"It's a cool sword from some book I read once. That's a _ way _ better thing to name a raft after than... whatever dumb thing gave you _ your _ idea."

"Fine, then. There's only one way to settle this," Riku says, smirking.

"You're right. We settle this... like _ pirates." _

The two of you go to get the wooden swords you always play with. Riku's kinda better than you, unfortunately, but this is important. You _ know _ you can pull through when it really counts.

You raise your sword, totally prepared to win glory and name your raft.

* * *

Ten minutes later, Kairi is painting Riku's name for the boat on one of the canoes, and your name for the raft on one of the others, even though Riku won. You all work together to load up the boat while the paint starts to dry, and once it seems like it's not gonna run too much, you hop on board your respective canoe-segments and go.

This is it, you realize, looking out at the afternoon sun shining across the waves, smelling the salt in the air, watching your best friends in the world paddle along with you as you drift off toward the horizon. This is the start of the adventure you've been waiting your whole lives for.

You can't _ wait _ to get started.

* * *

** **

You set out for the island shaped like a butt, with the wind at your back and the world slowly opening up before you.

Sailing's easy - well, it's easy for you, because you do it more than anybody else around here. Your Mom is drunk so much of the time that you end up getting most of the groceries, and sometimes that means taking out one of the bigger boats and heading around the islands.

Sora... can definitely make it a short distance without turning the whole thing over and drowning like an idiot. Kairi can't, but of course there aren't many things Kairi can do in the first place, so it's not like you've ever expected her to navigate anything without instructions.

"Hey, Riku. Do you think there's gonna be another world right there? On the island that's shaped like a butt?" Sora sounds like he actually thinks there's a chance. Maybe that's encouraging, in a way.

"No. If there was, somebody else would've found it by now. But it's worth looking anyway, just to mark it off the list once and for all. Then we can start going farther out." The truth is a little more complicated, actually, because you have something that none of the other kids did. For all you know, this might be the day.

It won't be, of course. But it would be stupid not to check.

"What will we do if we don't find anything?" Kairi, staring out at the water, her eyes weirdly glossy and empty, even by Kairi standards. You feel a little prickle of irritation for some reason, even though she's asking the same questions you ask yourself every five minutes.

"Kairi, pull the rope on your left." She blinks, shakes her head a little.

"Which... rope is that?"

"The one on the _ left, _" you say, with a level of patience you really aren't feeling.

"Oh," she says. "Right." And she starts pulling.

"If we don't find anything, we'll keep looking," you finally answer. "And if we don't find anything then, we'll know there's nothing to find."

But there _ will _ be something to find. Some people are still doubtful about other worlds, somehow, because some people are stupid, and would probably drown if they accidentally looked up during a rainstorm one day. Not you, though.

If there are no other worlds, then where did Tidus and Rinoa and Vanille come from? Where did Kairi come from?

Where did _ you _ come from?

Your earliest memory is still lodged like a thorn somewhere deep under your skin, sharp and clear. Being small and terrified and wrapped up in your Mom's arms, choking on _ something _ out there in the dark, a field of cold stars leering at you like eyes in the night. The horrible, piercing cold. Whispers, from every direction at once, like the sound of fingers trailing across your skin.

And crashing, finally, into a cold and storm-tossed ocean, and waking up again confused in a place you didn't recognize. The weeks it took Mom to recover enough to walk around, or feed you, or really even to talk to you.

The time she took you in a boat to find a way back home, and drifting back to this place half-dead from dehydration, because packing extra beer was clearly more important than packing drinking water.

...Obviously, you won't be making the same mistakes.

"I... um... uh..." Kairi is fidgeting anxiously over in her boat, for some reason. She's still staring out at the water, except this time she's looking back at the island you just left. Her eyes are kind of wild and twitchy, and it makes the hairs on the back of your neck stand up, because you genuinely can't remember ever seeing a look like that on her face before.

She looks like she wants to leap out of the boat and just... swim home.

You could ask her what's wrong. Probably you _ should _ ask her. But then she might answer, and then you might have to do something different. So you don't ask. Eventually, she settles down. Kind of.

That's good enough for you.

* * *

It only takes an hour and a half or so to get to the island that's shaped like a butt. The three of you flop out onto the shore and get to exploring.

It's not exactly the most interesting place you've ever been. Tropical woods, mostly, and some weird huge crabs that you don't really see on the main islands. You keep your distance from those, even though Sora wants to catch one and keep it as a pet, because it's never even _ occurred _ to Sora to think about self-preservation.

Now, you're not saying there's _ nothing _ interesting about this. It's a little interesting, of course, because you're not supposed to be here, and it's just far enough that it wasn't worth the effort. You've been here once before, alone, but it was tough enough without a sail that you never tried again.

If your hunch is right, you wouldn't have found anything on your own anyway. But today, things are different.

"Riku, wait, what are we supposed to be doing again if we stay out here overnight?"

You sigh. You're not sure why you expected Sora to remember a thing for more than half a day.

"I'm... supposed to be at Sora's house, I think?" At least Kairi's honest enough to sound unsure as she totally butchers your plans. Sora's house. Sure. Doesn't she just wish.

"No, you're supposed to be at _ my _ house," you say, before any of this can get out of hand like it usually does. "Your grandma won't talk to my Mom about it, at least not right away, not after all that drama with the cliff and the fence and the rotten coconuts."

"Oh yeah," Sora says, and for a second you think he might have actually dredged something useful up out of his short term memory, or maybe it's more like medium-term. "We're both supposed to be at Riku's house, right."

"What? No. You're supposed to be at _ Kairi's _ house, obviously, because then your aunt's not going to worry about anything." As long as there's no specific reason to be anxious about Sora, his aunt will definitely stay exactly as hands-off as she always does, which is hands-off enough that none of you have any concerns about it.

"Ohhhh. Wait, then where are-"

"I'll be telling _ my _ Mom that everybody's staying at your house, Sora." And she'll be drunk about it, and rude about it, but she won't care enough to be a problem. She might not like Sora, but she just doesn't have the same venomous edge about him that she does about Kairi.

"Yeah, okay. I guess that makes sense." He definitely only halfway understands your reasoning, but it's fine. Half is enough, as long as he doesn't get in the way of you calling the shots.

"If we end up staying out more than a day," you continue, "we might have to bribe one of the others to pass on a fake message from Kairi and tell everybody our various fake sleepovers are running late."

"Who should we ask?" Kairi sounds like she doesn't like the idea of asking anyone to say anything fake about anything. She's always determined to be everybody's moral compass. You'll just have to be twice as realistic to compensate, as usual.

"Good question. The real concern is who we can trust not to screw it up, which... maybe rules Tidus out. I don't think acting is exactly his strong suit." You don't really think anything is Tidus's strong suit, other than maybe hitting things. A branch snaps behind you somewhere, and Kairi squeaks.

"Doesn't Rinoa kinda hate parents or something?" You're a little surprised Sora even remembers that.

"She doesn't hate parents," Kairi mumbles. "She just doesn't like _ bad _ parents." You try not to scoff at that. She's right, of course, but since when is there such a thing as a good parent?

"Maybe Vanille," Sora says. "I don't think she really cares about, like... anything."

You nod, pushing aside a big leafy plant, and turn to make sure you don't accidentally let it go and smack Sora in the face. Then you stop dead.

"Kairi, what happened?" You'd be annoyed at her delaying you, but you're too busy being disturbed.

"N... nothing?" It's obviously not nothing, you have _ eyes _. She's kind of half-crouched down in the brush, sniffling and trying not to cry, and... oh crap, there's blood all over the leaves and vines, somehow.

"Whoa, Kairi, are you okay? Is that _ your _ red stuff?"

Someday, Sora will definitely remember what body parts are called even when he doesn't have them. You choose to believe that.

"I'm o-okay, really! I can keep going!"

You're not sure how much blood is too much blood. Honestly, most of the islanders don't have it, so all you really know is stuff you learned in school, and usually it's not relevant to you at all. But you also know that even if it _ was _ too much blood, Kairi would say she was fine, so you let the plant flop back into place and go check on her.

"What _ is _ that? Is that... oh, that's a trap, isn't it?" You guess now you know why the kids aren't allowed to come out to this island. It's got all these little metal teeth that are digging into the meat of her leg. You try not to stare in fascination at the blood welling up from around the teeth, or to think too hard about what it feels like to get injured and have stuff inside you _ not stop coming out _ after the initial flash of light.

"Kairi, I think we should go get you healed," Sora says.

"Sora's right," you say, because he is, not because you like it.

"Are you... sure? I could... probably, um..." Kairi trails off and winces. You guess it must hurt pretty bad.

"Riku, should we try to take the thing off her?" Sora looks like he really doesn't want to touch it, or get anywhere near the blood.

"...No, I think that just lets more blood out, doesn't it?" Kairi nods slowly. That must be _ really _ inconvenient. "C'mon, Kairi. I'll carry you back."

You dislodge the trap from the ground while she tries not to whimper in pain, and kind of hoist her up onto your back, heading for the boat. She's heavy, and warm, and you can feel her breathing. It's weird, and you'd really like to get it over with as fast as possible.

As you load her back into the boat, you do your best to stay positive about this trip. Sure, it was kind of a failure, but also it really wasn't. You made it here just fine.

You were right. You can do this.

* * *

_ A lot of years ago _

Ever since that bright Winter day all those years ago, it's been the three of you. Ever since you and Sora made that promise in the dirty, melting Christmas snow, hands clasped tight, the sunlight glaring off whitened rooftops, like a spotlight shined on how terrible you were, after the awful thing you did to Kairi.

It was the year after you stopped believing in Santa. You'd talked Sora into not believing in Santa either, because you make bad decisions every single day, so Sora only got practical stuff from his aunt, and you only got yelled at, and meanwhile the other kids were still coming in with their big hauls of a million great presents.

It just wasn't fair that whether or not Christmas sucks depends on whether you're lucky enough to have a family that doesn't suck, and it wasn't fair that the lucky ones don't even have to _ know _ they're lucky because they all bought into the Big Lie of Santa Claus.

So, you decided to fix the problem. You and Sora would just... find an emotionally sensitive classmate who still got Santa, and you'd get pity-invited to sleep over at their house for Christmas. It would be easy, because Sora is an orphan and everybody knows you Come From A Bad Home.

Then you'd just sneak out by the tree and wait for "Santa" to come and see if he was real or not. Sora was - and let's be real, probably still is - _ Santa-agnostic, _ and he wouldn't let go of the hope that there might really be a Santa there that the two of you could apologize to. You obviously figured it was just everybody's parents, but that was just as good, because once you caught them you could demand that they get you presents too or you'd tell their kid that Santa wasn't real.

Maybe it wasn't the nicest, most morally upright Christmas scheme, and you probably wouldn't have done it if it was just your problem, but you couldn't stand seeing Sora all glum on the holidays. Sadness just hangs wrong on his face. One look at that, and you're willing to do anything and everything to make it go away.

Anyway. Kairi was the obvious target. Everyone knew you could get Kairi to agree to pretty much whatever you wanted, and _ you _ didn't know her that well, but Sora had played with her a few times and claimed the assessment was pretty accurate.

(Neither of you had the slightest idea just _ how _ accurate it was, though. Probably most of the people talking about her didn't, either.)

Everything worked out smoothly. You both got invited to Kairi's house. Then you got there. You got there, and it was _ weird. _ She had a nice house, which you guess should've been obvious for the mayor's adopted granddaughter, and she was a girl, and the whole thing was just really intimidating. You kept waiting for the moment you'd look over at Sora and realize you could see _ on his face _ that now he liked her better than you.

Sora had a pretty good time, because he was Sora. Kairi liked drawing and animals and fairy tales and being nice to people, and Sora was _ perfectly _ happy to be taught how to draw a five-point star and help Kairi put out boxes and towels in the field out back so all the assorted beasts of the island would have somewhere to take shelter from the year's one night of magical Christmas snow and pretend to be a scary dragon.

Every once in a while Kairi's grandma would come out with snacks and be weirdly nice to you and talk about how glad she was that Kairi had friends over for Christmas, which obviously meant how glad she was that Kairi had _ friends. _ It was confusing and frustrating and put you on edge, like there was no way to predict the next time you might have to duck.

Sora was acting weird because you never did all this crap by yourselves, but also, if you're being honest, it was kind of satisfying to be better than Sora at things for an audience. Figuring out how to draw different kinds of stars with even more points, or make a better shelter, or be a stronger make-believe knight.

It was just nice, somehow, when she smiled at you. There was something uncomplicated about it, like maybe this was what it would've been like to have a little sister. Something familiar, even, although to this day you can't figure out why.

...Then again, if you had a sister, maybe Sora would've just been friends with her and not you. So no. Things were fine how they were.

The night got more and more calm and subdued as the babies all wore themselves out, until finally everyone was putting up stockings - her grandma gave everyone _ stockings, _ like some kind of _ bribe _ \- and Kairi brought out milk and homemade cookies for Santa, like baiting a bear trap in her living room.

And then, the inevitable happened: it became time to talk about What You All Wanted From Santa. Sora wanted a real sword, because that made sense and would definitely happen, and you wanted "a thousand munny," because you couldn't think of anything better and _ that _ would definitely happen.

But Kairi... like always, Kairi was herself. Kairi had made some weird little charm out of popsicle sticks, and tried to "work some magic" on it even though you're pretty sure she didn't know any magic and neither did anybody your age, and what did she want? What did she want for _ Christmas? _

She wanted Santa Claus to deliver a present _ from her, _ to _ someone else. _

"I just hope Santa will help me give this to the girl who gave me my necklace, and... maybe tell me if she's still okay," Kairi said, like someone whose only goal in life was to be respected by a church.

So everyone sat around reassuring Kairi that Santa Claus, a real person, would _ definitely _ help deliver her altruism, and you tried really really hard not to make any jokes about how her gay lover was absolutely dead, and you _ almost _ succeeded.

And then everyone went to bed, and by "everyone went to bed," you mean that Kairi went to bed in her very pink room, and you and Sora pretended to go to bed in the guest room and then made dark plans to lurk behind her living room couch and lie in wait for your festive prey.

Except on the way there you made too much noise and "woke up" Kairi, who you suspect was exactly as not-asleep as any kid is on Christmas Eve, gay or not. And that's how the three of you hid behind Kairi's couch all night long.

It took almost all the way until dawn before Kairi suddenly realized Santa Claus probably wouldn't show up if someone was watching, or maybe she'd thought that the whole time and it took her six and a half hours to work up the courage to go against the flow.

She got really distressed about it, is the thing. You had to talk her out of crying, and then you felt really weird about yourself when it worked. And then five minutes later it stopped working, because she realized that once the sun rose Santa wouldn't come, and then Santa wouldn't deliver her stupid charm-thing, and she tried to to go tell her grandma that you and Sora were trying to ruin Christmas.

And, yeah, maybe you panicked a little bit, because that would mean everybody was going to get it, and then her grandma would call your Mom and you'd get it _ again _ at home - this was before the thing with the fence - and you grabbed Kairi and pushed her up against the wall.

"Your girlfriend's _ dead, _ Kairi, like everybody from your world, and half my family, and half of everybody's families! Are you going to be the one person on this whole island who can't suck it up and deal?"

And then Sora punched you for hitting girls, even though you didn't hit _ anybody, _ and in fact nobody getting hit was the whole _ point, _ and then everybody was yelling loud enough to wake up Kairi's grandma, who put her to bed and was Very Disappointed In Both Of You, and that's how you ruined Christmas when you were eight years old.

Kairi's grandma lectured you both for at least forty-five minutes, but for some reason nobody actually got hit. She said a lot of stuff that you didn't entirely take seriously - that you can't treat Kairi like that, because she's special and she doesn't know how to say no to people, and you felt kind of bad about all of it but you figured she was being a little bit ridiculous, too.

Her grandma went off to buy presents, which she was going to have to do now that you had driven Santa away into the cold morning, and all in all it was basically an okay Christmas by your standards... until later that day, when you saw Kairi again.

She wasn't angry, is the thing. She wasn't upset, or hurt, or depressed. She didn't mind that any of it had happened at all. It was clearly _ not _ that she was colonizing the moral high ground, or that she thought it would be wrong to hold a grudge.

No, she just smiled and said it was okay, and she knew you didn't mean anything by it, and you finally started to understand what her grandma meant by 'special.'

Because Kairi _ couldn't _ hold a grudge. She didn't really even understand what a grudge _ was. _

She couldn't even stay sad for a whole day.

"We gotta do better than this," Sora said as the Christmas magic wore off and the last of the snow melted around you, running down rain gutters and pooling at the sides of houses. "We have to protect Kairi."

"...Yeah," you said, looking down at your feet and feeling kind of like a gross slug in the shape of a person. "Nobody else is going to do it, right?"

Sora shook his head, and technically her grandma was probably trying, but what was a grown-up going to be able to do to protect a kid, especially from other kids?

You _ had _ to protect Kairi, because now you understood what she was.

Sora seemed happy about it, because of course he was. Sora's Sora, and he was Sora back then, too. To Sora, there's no such thing as too many friends. You... well, you weren't unhappy, exactly. You were just a little more cautious is all, cautious about destabilizing things, cautious about saddling yourself with that kind of responsibility, but...

...Well, _ you _ weren't about to be the jerk who was an enemy of friendship. You just wanted Sora to keep on looking at you the same way he always had.

All of that was only the beginning of understanding what was special about Kairi. You learned a lot more things, some of them from being her friend, and some of them in other ways. And you came to understand that special people like her needed protecting from a lot of things, for a lot of reasons.

In a way, it made _ you _ special too, being the only person - the only _ people _ who could protect the special person. What was anyone else going to do? Nobody else was strong enough, or smart enough, or cold enough. Nobody else was going to do what needed to be done.

As usual.

* * *

_ Today, again _

Sora and you handle most of the boat stuff on the way back home, because neither of you is exactly sure what kind of things make somebody with blood lose it faster.

You need Kairi to be in good shape. That's not optional, because Kairi is probably the secret to traveling to other worlds. With her here, you'll _ definitely _ find a way off these tiny islands, and then you'll finally leave this place forever, and everything will be great.

Your friends will have to be convinced, of course, but you know you can do that. You've got all the time in the world.

And they'll see, once you've escaped. Everything will be so much better. They'll understand.

Someday, they'll thank you for it.

* * *

****

Sora and Riku take you back to the island, all the way to the other kids' hideout, because Vanille is closer than a proper healer, and also you don't want to waste a proper healer's time. Riku leaves to find a place to hide the raft-boat, and Sora wanders around poking at some of their possessions.

"Y'know, you could have just gone to a real healer," Tidus says from the doorway. You shake your head and he shrugs.

"Hmm..." Vanille leads you over to a chair and gets your leg propped up on a rock that the other kids use as a table sometimes. "Yep, that's pretty bad! Hey guys, have you got anything I can make a tourniquet with?"

"I don't know what that means," Tidus says.

_ (Something drawing tight in your mind as the raft-boat sloshed toward the island, like a rubber band about to snap.) _

"I've probably got something! Let me just look around," Rinoa says, vanishing into a different part of the cave.

"Can you heal it?" Sora says anxiously, hovering nearby. Vanille nods.

"It's harder to heal other people with blood, but I sure can!"

"Will this work?" Rinoa re-enters the room with an old scarf. Vanille takes it and ties it uncomfortably tight around your upper leg. You bite your lip and try not to make noise.

_ (What did you do, and what did it cost?) _

"Sorry," Vanille says. "This is going to hurt a bit. What happened, anyway?" Your answer is delayed a bit by the skittering sound of paws on stone as Rinoa's dog Angelo sprints into the cave and skids to a stop next to you, licking your hand.

"We w-went to... the island that's shaped like a butt, to explore, and then..." You trail off, petting Angelo idly. He always seems excited to see you, for some reason.

"Ah, yeah. There's some old guy who keeps leaving traps all over there. That's why everybody tries to keep their kids away. What were you guys exploring for?"

"Well... Riku wanted to, and I didn't really know how to... I mean..." You're not sure how to phrase this, and you don't want to say anything that might sound mean by accident. "It was important, that's all. I - _ aaaah!" _

While you're distracted, Vanille suddenly pops the trap loose from your leg. Blood immediately pours from a bunch of little holes in your calf, and you wonder how much worse it would be without the tourniquet. Vanille's hands hover in front of the wounds, glowing faintly, and you watch in fascination as the pulses of flowing blood slow and the pain gets duller and duller.

_ (Like cold, sharp spider legs, prickling up and down your spine.) _

"Y'know, you could try standing up to that guy once in a while, Kairi," Tidus says while staring at your leg like it's an alien creature. "Or I could just punch him for you if you want."

"Huh? Why would anybody be punching Riku?" Sora stares at Tidus, apparently exactly as confused as you are, but the looks on everyone else's faces seem to be saying that they all think it's obvious.

"Riku didn't do anything wrong," you say, _ (because you're the one who did something wrong) _ because he didn't. If anyone did something wrong, it was you _ ((((for breaking the rules // so foolishly)))) _ for holding everyone up so much.

You feel a little dizzy and nervous. Maybe it's just the blood loss.

_ (Maybe it's not.) _

"I think maybe he could stand to worry about whether other people actually want the same things he does, once in a while," Rinoa says. Tidus nods. They're wrong, of course, but... no, they're just wrong. Riku is good. Riku is your friend.

"Thank you for being concerned about me, but I'm okay," you say. "Really."

No one seems particularly convinced.

_ (Not even you.) _

"Okay, I think I've done just about everything I can," Vanille says. The glow fades from her hands. She unties the scarf from your leg and leans back against the cave wall, a line of sweat running down her forehead. "Try to go a little easy on that leg for a day or two, just in case?"

"I'll try," you say, and you will, as long as that doesn't get in anyone's way. You reach down to pet Angelo again, but he suddenly jerks his head toward the cave entrance, ears pricked, and then he bolts off into the evening.

"Angelo, wait! Oh no, he must have smelled some kind of critter!" Rinoa rushes out after her dog, and a second later Tidus follows her.

"Be safe, okay?" Vanilla pats you on the head like you're a small child, then follows her friends, leaving you alone with Sora and a lot of slightly-dried blood in the older kids' cave.

Sora sits down on Vanille's rock next to you, scratching his head anxiously.

"Hey, Kairi... you do _ want _ to go visit other worlds with us, right?"

You stare at Sora for a few long seconds. You definitely aren't going to cry.

"I wouldn't mind visiting other worlds," you say. Sora smiles a little, mollified.

It's true. You wouldn't mind visiting.

...But...

You're not sure if you _ can _ visit. It's just... too far away.

It isn't that you're afraid of going far away, exactly. You just... can't. Ever since you arrived on Destiny Islands, you've felt... leashed, somehow. There's some part of your mind that's tied to this island, the one all the kids like to play on. Like Angelo when Rinoa ties him near a fence or something so he won't wander too far away.

The farther you go from the island, the weirder you feel. There are places on the mainland where you're stuck on one side of the street; there are exciting things on the other side that you'd love to see, but you just... can't.

You've never been able to explain why you can't just go to that really nice looking candy shop, that pet store, that park. You've tried to talk to your grandma about it, but even someone who's as good at magic as she is could never figure out what was happening. She's spent years on it, actually, looking for a cure, and hasn't made any progress.

That's okay, usually. You're very, very used to it. Except now the leash feels...

_ (Wrong.) _

What is this weird, lingering dread at the edges of your mind? You're not used to fear at all. Hardly anything really scares you, and most of the time when other people are scared, you feel guilty about it but you just can't understand why. But this... this is just...

_ (Terrifying.) _

You just... you didn't even want to do this. You don't hate Riku's ideas, really, but you don't understand them either. You know enough about boats to understand that this is probably not going to work out, even with all your effort to be well-supplied, and you don't know why he thinks he'll find the ways to other worlds in the water.

You suppose you don't know where they are, either, and it's stupid and unfair of you to doubt him, but... your instincts are telling you to look _ higher. _

What if all of you die at sea trying to find something that doesn't exist? You don't want Sora to die, or Riku, especially not for no reason. And... you know perfectly well that Riku doesn't actually want to come back, even if Sora can't seem to see that.

_ (Too far. It's all too far, and too late.) _

Something deep in your heart feels strange, and wrong, and cold. Once, Riku made everyone watch a weird scary movie, and the only part that bothered you was when there was the ghost of a little girl, crying in a deep dark hole, because she was still scared of something, even after dying. That feeling, those scared hopeless tears, are exactly what you can feel crawling along the back of your neck.

None of you are even going to make it to sea, are you?

"Sora? If we get lost at sea, it's okay if you guys eat me. I'm the only one who would leave a body, so... I should probably die first."

"Wh... what? Kairi, where's that coming from?" Sora stares at you like you're speaking another language. "We're not gonna get lost, I promise. Everything's gonna be fine."

"..Okay. I'm sorry," you say. You guess it's okay that he doesn't really understand what you're trying to say. You're not sure if you understand what you're trying to say, either.

"How's your leg doing? You okay?" You almost flinch at the unexpected voice, turning your head to the cave entrance yet again to see Riku standing there, silhouetted against the evening.

"I'm fine," you say, and in the context he was asking about, that's mostly true.

"Good. Come on then, you guys. Let's go watch the sunset."

Sora helps you up, although you probably don't need it, and by the time you're out of the cave it barely hurts to walk anymore.

The three of you make your way over to the little island with the paopu tree, taking your usual spots and watching the sky burn and bruise over. You're struck by the sudden, irrational certainty that the sun is never going to rise on this world again. A few paopu fruits sway in the chill wind, ripe and vulnerable.

The thing is, you _ know _ that most people don't think you can want anything, but...

* * *

_ Last year _

After weeks of nervous anticipation, it was finally time for the school festival. That year, for whatever reason the three of you got assigned the most coveted position of all: doing the obligatory booth about My Island's Natural Beauty, which was coveted because it was very, very simple, and no one had to have any clever ideas.

(You had kind of wanted to do a cat cafe, but you had to admit the boys had a point that this would be a lot less complicated.)

Sora went to the beach to dig up some natural beach beauty. You ended up going to Riku's house, which genuinely seemed like an okay idea at the time. There were a lot of butterflies around Riku's house some seasons, and...

"I've gotta use Kairi," Riku had said solemnly. "Small stupid animals _ love _ Kairi. She could stand there holding a jar and the little weirdos would just float right in."

You weren't quite sure what made butterflies weirdos, but he wasn't wrong, so you let Riku lead you off away from the rest of the buildings, out to the weird thinly-populated poor part of town right at the south edge of the leash, the part of the town where everything _ should _ be the same, but somehow all the sights seem just a little hazy and out-of-focus.

Except once you got there, Riku revealed that he had planned all along to "humanely" kill the butterflies, because that way they'd be easier to display, and honestly, wasn't dying a lot better than being imprisoned anyway? Riku could live with being a murderer, but he couldn't live with being a jailer. He said it like it was the most natural, obvious thing in the world.

You didn't agree with one single word. Murder seemed like a bad thing, especially if they weren't even going to become food for other creatures. You told Riku that if they were alive then people could see them moving around and it would make a better exhibit, because that's the kind of logic that gets through to Riku, but really you just didn't want to hurt them.

The two of you got into as much of an argument about it as you were personally capable of, which to be honest wasn't very much, but it was enough to wake up Riku's mom at three in the afternoon. She came out into the garage, and...

"What are you damn kids doing out here at this hour? Riku, you _ know _ what kinda girl spends all her time hanging around with boys. The kinda girl who's shooting for child support!"

Riku started yelling back, and his mom knocked the display off the table and broke it on the floor and stormed back into the house. Riku followed in her, still yelling, and you stood there in the garage by all the broken glass listening to screaming voices and people crashing around.

Then Riku came back with a bag of frozen pineapple chunks pressed against the side of his face.

"Kairi," Riku said, putting his spare hand on your shoulder and squeezing a little too hard. "If Sora asks what happened, I just walked into a door, alright? I walked into a door because I'm an idiot."

"But... but didn't-"

"_ I walked into a door, Kairi. This is important." _

The look on his face was as urgent as the time traveling hero of a movie you saw once when he went back into the past to warn his friends about the end of the world.

"Okay, Riku," you said, because it was the only thing you could say. "If Sora asks, I'll..."

"Good," Riku said, looking a little relieved. "Good. Okay, we can still salvage this. It's not too late. I'll go dig up some more plants. You go catch some more butterflies to replace the ones my Mom killed."

And he ran off before you could beg him to give you something less stressful to do. Not that you actually could have begged him, anyway.

But by the time you got back to the field where the butterflies were, it was getting a little dark and they had migrated over to the warmer side of the field where you couldn't reach. You sat there for hours trying to call them over, but they never came, and you thought about the encroaching night-time, and Riku's mom, and dead butterflies, and child support, and you started to feel the slow, awful creep of something dark and cold you weren't familiar with.

Then, finally, Sora arrived out of nowhere.

_ "Riku walked into a door," _ you all but shrieked.

"Yeah, that happens a lot," Sora said.

Riku never came back. Later, you found out that he'd just assumed you ditched him and went home. But Sora didn't assume anything. Sora didn't tell you to lie to anybody _ or _ kill small animals. He was just nice to you while you panicked.

He came up with the idea of making paper butterflies - "Since you're such a good artist, Kairi!" - and he walked you back to your house where it was warm and there were art supplies and you didn't have to think about leashes, and he got some sticks out of the yard to glue the butterflies onto to make it look more nature-y.

Sora helped you cut out the paper and glue things together to work faster, and he always had something nice to say about whatever you were doing.

The booth came out okay. It wasn't really good or bad compared to the usual stuff at the festival. A lot of Sora's beach stuff went bad and you couldn't use it, and Riku didn't find as many cool island plants the second time around, but everybody liked your butterflies, and Sora put his arm around your shoulders and said you were the one who made them, and...

...And you didn't understand any of it at all, but you knew everybody was wrong about you, because you _ did _ want something, even if you didn't know what it was.

* * *

_ Today, again _

"Hey, Sora," Riku says, arms crossed behind his head, looking up at the sunset. "Have you ever shared a paopu fruit with anybody?"

You didn't think the sense of awful doom hanging over you could get any worse. You were wrong.

"Huh? N-no, of course not. Why, have you?"

He definitely hasn't.

But he could, couldn't he? If he wanted to.

_ (Not that it matters now. Superstition can't fix what you've done.) _

"Maybe, maybe not."

"Whaaaat? C'mon, you gotta tell me if you did something like that!"

Why did you go with them to that stupid butt-shaped island? Why are you so stupid? Why can't you make one good decision in your whole life?

You didn't know the island would be too far. You've never tried to go too far in a boat before, where you couldn't turn around. And once you were out on the water, feeling the leash tighten around your throat, the mounting anxiety choke the words out of you, your friends and the current carried you forward, through the unpassable wall.

And now the leash is broken, and something very, _ very _ bad is going to happen. You can feel it in your bones - deeper than your bones. In your heart. Maybe even deeper than that.

There's a long pause, and slowly you realize everyone is kind of just waiting for someone else to volunteer to eat a paopu fruit. You know why _ you're _ not doing it; you don't want to be the person who wants to do it the most. Maybe they both feel the same way.

But you _ could _ be that person, right? Does it actually matter if it's embarrassing? What if you could share the fruit with Sora, and _ just _ Sora, and you could run away off the island together, far away from leashes and families and raft-boats and animal traps and Riku, and then maybe the bad thing won't happen, and it won't be anywhere near as too late as it obviously is.

...Wait, why are you thinking that? What would make you think something like that? This isn't like you at all.

You'll just... you'll just stop thinking about it, and when you get home you'll tell Grandma what you did and she'll help you, and maybe everything can still be okay.

* * *

No one volunteers to eat anything.

* * *

Eventually, it's almost totally dark out, and it's time to go home. The three of you make your way to the boats while you try not to cry or throw up _ (might as well, while you still can). _ When you get there, Tidus seems to be waiting for you.

"Hey. You guys. You're... trying to go to another world, aren't you?"

It's clearly not really a question.

"...Maybe. What's it to you?" Riku looks like he half expects Tidus to run off and tell everyone's parents right away.

_ (Suddenly, a sense of suffocation. Something pulling at you from behind.) _

"Listen. You know Rinoa was a sorceress back in her world, right? And everybody knows Vanille's great at magic. Well, neither of them could find us a way off these islands either. So if I'm gonna be honest with you guys... I don't think you're gonna find anything. But..." he trails off, kicking at the sand a little. "But if I'm wrong and you do it..."

_ (Like vines, creeping across your skin, tangling between your fingers and around your wrists.) _

"...Yeah?" Sora says. Even he can tell this sounds like someone gearing up to ask for a favor.

_ ((((further renunciation denied // the ritual is to be maintained without cessation)))) _

"If you really make it to another world... Rinoa's boyfriend's name is Squall. alright? Kind of a tall, dark, edgy kid, I heard. You know, like Riku, except dignified. Scar on his face. Vanille's girlfriend's name is Fang. She's always carrying a spear or something, that's all I've got. And my... my friend's name is Yuna. She's kind of a nice, soft person. A healer. Maybe she still likes wearing blue.

You're going to do your best to remember all of that, but you sort of wish he could have at least written all of this down.

_ (The leash. The leash the leash the leash the leash) _

"So yeah," Tidus says awkwardly. "If you meet any of them... can you tell them we're okay? And... if you guys find a way out, and there's time to come back... take us with you."

_ (It's shorter, now. Too short. You can't even take another step toward the boats.) _

Have to say something. Have to tell someone. Have to ask for help. Have to fight the _ (fingers of cold light peeling open your bones) _ fear/sadness/terror/dread.

"Yeah, of course, Tidus! We'll keep an eye out, alright? And if there's time, we'll at least tell you where to go." Sora smiles at Tidus, who ruefully smiles back, and no one is looking at you. No one notices the leash. No one knows.

You open your mouth to speak, and close it again.

_ (The leash is getting shorter. How much longer can you even stand here on the dock?) _

You don't want to be a problem. You've already been such a problem today.

...And maybe this is supposed to be happening, anyway. Maybe you deserve this _ ((((for an unforgivable dereliction of duty)))) _.

"H... hey, guys?" Your voice sounds so small and faltering, even for you. "Could you leave me here for a while? You can, um... you can go back without me. I just want to..."

Riku gives you a long, appraising look. Is that a hint of guilt spreading across his face, or are you imagining things?

_ ((((the only guilt here is yours // the only sin)))) _

"Sure," he says finally. "Take your time, alright? We can take my kayak back and leave Sora's for you. Right, Sora?"

"Uh, yeah, I guess that's okay," Sora says, obviously confused.

"Thank you," someone says with your mouth. It might even be you.

_ (Tightening tightening tightening tightening go back go back go back go back) _

And just like that, Sora and Riku disappear into the night horizon, leaving you alone with Tidus.

A few seconds later _ (or is it minutes?) _ Rinoa and Vanille show up, carrying all kinds of random stuff from their cave, and suddenly they're all piling into their own boats to go home, and everyone's saying goodbye to you, and you're saying goodbye to them, and you should ask them to wait, you could ask them to wait, except you can't, and you don't.

And then you're alone, and every last chance for help has disappeared before you could really even try to reach for it.

You take a step back toward the beach, and then another. The leash is pulling on your neck and your wrists and your ankles and your heart. And you walk, against your own will, back into the shadows of the island, toward the scary cave.

And you're remembering something, suddenly, from a very very long time ago. A memory of a dream, the first dream you can remember having, all the way back in the world you used to call home.

You were three years old, maybe, in real life and in the dream, and in the dream you were on a beach of bright white sand that faded into a vast ocean of blinding light, silver-white-gold, under a field of clouds that burned white and cold.

You walked out into the tide, and the water was hot enough to hurt just a little bit. Scouring like a bath. And you kept walking, and walking, until your head was under the surface, and all around you was the blistering bright white water, luminous like a thousand liquid suns, and the water crept into your nose and down your throat.

The light poured inside of you, and it filled you up like drowning, and you floated far, far beneath the waves, coughing up mouthfuls of colored ink, until there was nothing inside you but the light of an empty sky. The water burned it all away, hollowed you out like a clear glass bottle.

And when you woke up in the morning, you were different, and so was the world, and you were never really sad again in your life.

Why are you remembering this now, while the leash is pulling you away from the light, away from hope, away from everything, into the dark? Why does all of this feel so familiar, so obvious?

_ ((((there are always more eyes to open, child)))) _

And finally you're all the way in the cave, pressing your hands up against the scary door, and the door is cold, cold like ice, and everything is so dark, and you're so alone, and you can't even sit down, just press yourself against the door, sobbing and sobbing in a way you never have before.

...It's okay, if this is what you have to pay to save everyone from the thing you did, but... you didn't even know you were doing something wrong. Can't you have another chance? One more chance, please?

_ (But the burning inside just doesn't stop.) _

"P... please... just give me…”

"How _ does _ failure taste, Princess?"

Your whole body goes stiff at the low, cold voice from behind you. You've never heard this voice before in your life. It's a man, an older man, at least as old as somebody's parents, and he sounds... so, so pleased with himself.

"As always, you've been outplayed. It's so easy, Princess, to turn your vessels against you. There's no keeping this door closed anymore. The day is ending, and it is finally time for _ night." _

You can hear him shuffling around behind you, getting closer. His voice is so close that you can almost feel his breath on the back of your neck, and you don't want to turn around, but part of you wishes you _ could _ turn around, just so you could look at him and see a person, a human being, and not a terrifying monster.

"There's no undoing this. You'll stand here, holding fast to your precious rituals, and I will watch as the darkness finally comes to greet this pitiful little prison you call a world."

He stays with you for a long time, hovering above and behind just like that, murmuring into your ear while you sob.

It's only when the last light finally fades from the entrance of the cave and everything is plunged into blackness that he laughs.

He laughs, and he leaves you alone in the dark.

Alone with the leash, and alone with the door.

Alone with yourself.


	2. Goodbye to a World

You drop Sora off at his house and then go home, even if home's the last place you want to be, unlocking the door as quietly as you can and sneaking into your room. Mom doesn't even wake up, so she must've been hitting it extra hard extra early today. Lucky you.

Once you've made your way over to your bed and plopped down on it, you open up the little bag of supplies you've been carrying around and remove the thing you stole from the island, holding it up over your head where the moonlight can reflect off its porous surfaces.

Paopu really are weird-looking fruits. It's like a starfish that grew on a tree, except a lot more magical, maybe.

...You have no idea what you're going to do with this thing, but you know you want to do _something_ with it.

It's not that you don't like Kairi, alright? She's... a genuinely nice person, who's always going out of the way for her friends. You feel good whenever you can impress her. She's kind, generous, and if you're going to be honest about it, pretty. And it's not that Kairi doesn't like _you..._

...But you know perfectly well that if somebody gave her the choice and it was all the same to you, she'd rather it was just her and Sora hanging out, doing Kairi Stuff all on their own. Tea parties. Painting their nails. Giving to charity, or whatever.

You also know that _Kairi_ knows that if someone gave _you_ the choice, you'd rather it was just you and Sora, running along the beach and exploring new places and hitting each other with swords and actually doing things that are fun and matter.

So it's not that you've got anything against Kairi. It's just that the two of you are exactly the goddamn same. You don't want to share a magic fruit with Kairi, and she definitely doesn't want to share it with you.

The thing is, ever since you became a trio instead of a duo, it's felt inevitable that one of these days, you're going to piss Sora off enough that he won't be your friend anymore, because you're Too Much and there's really no changing that, and then Sora's going to stop being the guy who's got one really crappy best friend and start being the guy who has a hundred good friends and some extremely jealousy-inducing girlfriend while nobody gives a damn about that dramatic jerk Riku anymore.

Or maybe you'll be fine with it too, by the time it happens. You'll date a girl with a bunch of tattoos, and then one day you'll knock her up exactly like Mom is always warning you not to, and you'll suddenly decide families are good, actually, and you'll grow boring together.

You'll run into Sora at the market with your kids, and he'll say hi, and you'll say hi, and you'll both feel nostalgic about the good old days, and neither of you will really even remember how much it hurt. Maybe that'll happen here on Destiny Islands. Maybe it'll be in another world. Doesn't really matter. Either way, you can't escape the inevitable.

...But what if you could?

Your Mom's got a hundred different ways of calling Sora a fruit and implying you only go to his house so you can do gay things, and you've wondered a couple of times, honestly, but you're pretty sure it's not like that. You don't want to grab your best friend's ass. He'd punch you, and then you'd have to punch him, and everything would be ruined forever. Why does anybody want to grab anybody's ass? What's the point?

You just don't want to grow up.

You don't want to become someone who thinks putting babies in somebody is a great idea. You don't want to become someone who has a normal job. You don't want to become someone who realizes that actually your Mom was really trying her best, and you were the problem all along. You don't want to become someone who has a fresh twelve-pack of cheap beer in the fridge every morning.

So how exactly _are_ you going to trick Sora into eating this fruit?

Does it count if you make it into a smoothie and then lie about what kind of smoothie it is, or are drinking and eating too different for the magic to work? Should you try to win a bet and tell him you're making him do something embarrassing, say "Eat this fruit, you fruit" and punch him in the arm so it doesn't come off weird?

It's not like you can just ask him to do it. You're _not_ gonna be that guy.

Well, maybe you could try...

...Wait, what's that noise? Is there a storm outside or something? There's no window in your room, so you'll have to go look through the kitchen window or something. You haul yourself up and head out the door.

That doesn't _sound_ like a storm. There's a lot of wind, and the house might be rattling, very very slightly, but you can't place most of these noises, and you haven't heard any thunder.

Finally, you get the blinds open in the kitchen, and look out.

...Why is it so _dark?_ Did the power go out? No, of course it didn't, the lights are still on in here.

In the distance, something flashes bright, like lightning... except it's the wrong color. You've never in your life seen purple lightning before. And way out there in the dark, in the distance -

The hair's standing up on your arms and neck and basically everywhere as you try to convince yourself that you imagined all of those dark, strange shapes, writhing along the horizon... and then you finally identify some of those sounds.

Those are screams. A lot of screams, from a long distance away.

Far off near the beach, something explodes into a brief plume of orange flame, and for just a second you can see what look almost like the silhouettes of people out there, except that they're way, _way_ too tall to be people.

You're shivering. Are you... scared? No, that's not it. You _are_ scared, in a numb shocked way, but more than that you're _cold._ You can't think of any day in the year that's this cold except for Christmas, and that's only because Christmas magic makes it snow even in warm places. And it's not Christmas, and there's no snow.

There's _something_ falling from the sky, but it's not snow. It isn't rain, either.

Wait a minute. Where's Sora? Is Sora alright? Sora can't just be _at home_ when something insane is happening, he's a _moron,_ he'll see somebody's puppy crying outside and run out to help where all those _things_ are and...

...You have to go. You have to find him.

"Oh my God," Mom says from over your shoulder. You flinch and turn to look at her. "Oh my dear God."

"Mom, what's..." But you trail off when you see the way she's looking at you. Anger and fear and... disgust?

"Riku, _what did you do?"_

You don't even know how to process that question, let alone how to respond to it.

"What the _hell _did you do?!"

"Nothing! What are you talking about?"

She takes a step back. Looks to the window, then back to you.

"Not again," she says, and you don't think you've ever heard her sound so cold before. "I'm not letting you take everything away from me _again."_

And she raises her hand, fingers balling into a fist.

* * *

You should probably be asleep by now, but instead you're laying around trying to remember that stupid dream you had earlier today. Sure, you know that's a little dumb, but it's really bothering you! It still just feels... _important,_ somehow.

Frustrated, you roll over onto your side to stare out the window, and whoa, hey! Is it storming all of a sudden? When did that happen? The tree outside your house is thwapping its branches all over the place.

Wow, it's actually _really_ windy, and you think you can see some flashes of thunder way off in the distance, although it hasn't started raining yet. The raft is probably okay, right? You kept most of it back in the cave, so it _should_ be fine, but... what about...

...You've got a real bad feeling, so you sit up straight and get a better view out your window towards the water, and sure enough, Kairi never brought your boat back. Is she still out there on the island? In this weather? Crap, you've gotta go find her!

Except she's still got your boat, doesn't she? You'll have to go borrow somebody else's.

You toss your shoes back on and run out of the house. As you exit into your yard, you have the weirdest, nervous-est feeling, looking up at the pitch-black sky and hearing the howling wind.

It's a little silly, but you go and get your wooden sword, just to make yourself feel better.

You're not sure who's going to be awake at this hour other than Riku, so you're just gonna have to go bother him. He probably won't mind helping out, anyway, and you'll feel more confident if he's with you.

The wind screeches around you, pulling at your clothes. It's freezing cold, so cold you can actually see your breath, and the dark clouds are so thick you can't see a single star. You're not even sure you can see the _moon,_ and you're pretty sure there should be a moon out tonight.

It's gonna be fine, though. You'll get to Riku's house, go grab Kairi, and everyone's going to be fine, no matter how much the waving branches of trees in the distance look like grasping arms.

* * *

You knock on Riku's door, cringing a little at a particularly bright burst of lightning out in the distance somewhere, hoping Riku will hear before you wake his Mom up... but nobody comes, so you huddle closer to the door and knock louder. Still nothing.

You really don't have time for this, so you're just going to open the door and find him yourself. If his mom is mad, well, whatever, right? This is too important to worry about mad moms.

Crap, the door's locked. You forgot how paranoid Riku's mom is - wait, is somebody yelling in there? There are loud voices, and... _whoa,_ somebody just screamed! Okay, now there's _really_ no time to mess around.

You slam against the cheap wood with your shoulder, wincing when you hear something splinter a little, and then the door cracks right off its hinges and you tumble through, scrambling back to your feet and running toward wherever you heard that scream.

Wow, it's pitch-black in here, the only light is coming from outside, and that really doesn't count for much on a night like this. Okay, okay, there are only so many rooms in this house, you should find somebody any second now -

Oh.

You step into the kitchen, and there's no one there. But what _is_ there is Riku's mom's clothes, lying on the floor.

That's... there must be a good reason for... you know that outfit, is all. You see her in it around town all the time. Except normally there's a _mom_ inside it, and it's not... all torn up in the middle, with long ragged rips in the center part of the dress.

Your eyes trace a line up along the wall next to the clothes, where there are several huge, deep gouges taken out of the solid wood.

Riku's family is made of light, you think to yourself, dumbly. That's all that would be left, if...

No. No way. That's crazy. That doesn't even make sense.

You just have to find Riku. He'll be able to explain all of this. Everything's going to be _fine._

The dining room is on the other side of the living room, and you do at least find Riku in there. He's huddled down low in the corner, in the shadows, and you almost miss him the first time you look the room over.

"Riku, there you are! Are you okay?"

Riku slowly looks up at you, and another flash of light ricochets through the house, illuminating his face for just a second. He's totally expressionless, except for a thin trail of tears under both his eyes.

"...I didn't do it," he mumbles, then his eyes open wide. "I didn't do anything! I didn't do anything wrong!" You run over to him and drop to your knees, clasping your free hand on his shoulder, your wooden sword still gripped tight in the other.

"Yeah, of course you didn't, you weirdo. What's going on? Are you okay? Is your mom... I mean, I saw... in the kitchen..."

"I don't want to talk about it," he says quietly, as if that's even a little bit of a reasonable answer. He blinks a couple of times, then wipes his eyes. Then he freezes. "Oh no. It's still here. Sora, it never _left."_

"...What?" You turn around slowly, trying not to panic, pretending there aren't terrified tears prickling in the corners of your eyes right now... and you really do see something. Or at least, you see something's shadow.

In the flickering murky thunder, you can see it cast long across the floor. Like a person, except... _wrong._ Even just seeing its shadow, you can tell the limbs are jointed all weird, and it's... bulky. It almost looks like the shadow of a knight in armor. The thunder fades, but now that you know what you're looking for, you can still see the shadow on the floor, just barely.

The shadow twitches, suddenly. Its weird limbs jitter, stop, and then jitter again. You can hear something clanking and chittering from the room over.

"We have to go," Riku whispers. "_Now,_ Sora." He rises slowly to his feet, grabs you by the arm, and starts dragging you toward the back door of his house. The thing in the kitchen makes another sound - a slow, strangled noise, like somebody trying to laugh underwater and choking instead.

Then it twitches again, and there's a loud crash as some part of its body slams into a wall.

Riku leads you out the back door, and you sprint off into the night together, hearing crash after crash from inside the house, like it's smashing itself into something over and over and over and-

"It's the end of the world," Riku says. "I think... I think this is the same as last time."

You're not going to think about that, because that's crazy. Other worlds ends, not... _yours._

"Sora," he says. "Sora, we have to go to the other world. It's the only way."

"Riku, what? Shut up? We have to get Kairi, she's still on the island! We gotta go get a boat, like, right now!"

"What? No, wait, she can't be. We can't leave this world without her."

"Well, duh, but we're not leaving this world either way, 'cause _nothing bad is gonna happen!"_

"No, you don't understand. Kairi is the key to leaving this place."

Well, it's great that Riku went crazy from stress, and you love that, but you also really don't have time for it right now!

"Let's just find Kairi, okay? We'll find Kairi, and we'll take it from there, like normal people."

Riku stares at you for a couple seconds, and you're actually afraid he might argue. But finally, he nods.

Then he grabs your shirt and yanks you to the side, pulling you down into a big shrub.

"Riku, what the-"

_"Sshh,"_ he says, clasping his hand over your mouth.

Outside the shrub, something is walking past you. You can't see it clearly through the leaves, especially with this lighting, but it's there. A loud clicking sound echoes down the street, in weird little patterns.

It takes a step. Drags its leg a little, with a long, low, whispery scraping sound. Takes another step. Click-click-click, click-click-click-click-click, click-click. Step. Drag. Step.

Half a minute later, you're pretty sure it's gone, and you're really glad you didn't have to pee.

When you finally get to the little dock where Riku and his mom's boats usually are, the whole thing is smashed to bits, and some of it's actually on fire.

"Damn," Riku mutters. "Dammit, _dammit._ We have to go back into town."

"Well, hey, there are lots of people in town, right? So... it should be safer?"

Riku sighs.

"...I hope you're right."

* * *

But you're wrong.

It's obvious by the time you make it to the town proper. Everything is a mess. The dark sky is full of purple lightning, the wind is screaming, and people are also screaming. Some of the buildings are really messed up - a couple of stores you go to all the time are just... gone, smashed into rubble.

The streets are pitted with scrapes and gouges and holes, and all over the place there are empty piles of clothes, and even a few puddles of dark, quickly-drying blood, not to mention a handful of still bodies that you really, really want to believe are gonna wake up soon.

There are hardly any creatures, though, and you try to convince yourself that it's because they're leaving or something, and not because they moved on to places that still have people in them.

"We'll have to steal a boat," Riku says. "From someone who's already evacuated, obviously."

"How would you even know which people still need their boats?"

"I'll _guess,_" he says, like you're being stupid for worrying. "Come on, Sora, we don't have the luxury of worrying about strangers right now! Do you really think anybody around here needs their _boats_ anymore?"

"They might," you say weakly, and then you round a corner and walk right into another person and _totally_ don't scream.

"Oh hey, it's you guys! I'm glad you're alright!"

"Tidus! Where are... oh man, _phew,"_ you say, trailing off when you see Rinoa, Vanille, and Angelo behind him. "Whoa, Tidus, is that a real sword?"

"Sure is," he says grimly. Its sharp edge glitters gray in the dim light. Behind him, Vanille is clearly carrying her weird staff, and Rinoa's clutching a kitchen knife in one hand. You try really hard not to feel lame about the wooden sword you're still carrying. At least you have something. Riku's just kind of here.

"Guys, is there anyone else left over there?" Rinoa's already walking past you to look around the corner, the knife held out like she's totally ready to stab something.

"No," Riku says.

"Maybe," you say.

You both give each other a very different look.

"Tidus, Kairi's still out on the island," you say.

"What? No way." He tightens his grip on his sword. "Damn! We've been looking for survivors and trying to clear out some of those _things._ A lot of the magic users are gathering at the school building to try to keep everybody safe. I think your aunt's there, Sora. Riku, where's your mom?"

"She's fine," Riku says calmly. Rinoa turns back to look at him dubiously for a second.

"We can't leave Kairi, okay? She's all alone out there. I have to do something. I _have_ to."

Are you trying to convince them, or yourself?

"Oh well," Vanille says, way too brightly. "I think we're pretty much done looking around here, don't you guys?"

"...Maybe," Tidus says reluctantly. "Sora, why don't you kids go hole up in the school? We'll try to find Kairi."

"We're not _kids,"_ Riku says angrily. Tidus rolls his eyes.

"Fine, you _guys,_ whatever. Just... leave it to us."

"No way! We're coming, and that's final!" You wish you sounded a little less hysterical and a little more confident.

"We _could_ use some more helping hands," Vanille says.

"No," Rinoa says. "We're not putting them in danger. I'm not okay with..." But she trails off, looking right at you specifically, like she's just realized something. Then she swears under her breath. "...Fine. Fine, okay. But we're making it quick."

The three of them lead you and Riku on through the dark night, toward their neighborhood where there's still some boats, and you try your hardest to pretend you don't notice how the wind is stronger than ever before, and there's less and less time between every two flashes of lightning.

* * *

The ride there is bad. It's even worse than you were afraid it would be.

"Oh God," Rinoa says more than once, her voice tiny enough that she sounds like somebody else. "Oh God, they're so huge."

Everyone's huddled down low in the rowboat, to make yourselves harder to see, but... you're not even sure you have to worry. There could be ants all over the boat and you wouldn't see them in the dark like this, and you get the feeling the things out in the water feel the same way about you.

There are dozens of them, just... _walking through the sea._ The water only comes up to their thighs. You didn't know anything that big could even exist. They're out there, enormous murky shadows towering into the black, and when the angle is just right you think you might be able to see _through_ holes in the middle of them.

Their faces are indistinct, too high and too dark to make out, other than their bright eyes, burning like golden lanterns in the sky.

"Where are they going?" Tidus wonders out loud.

"To the other islands," Riku says, and you really, _really_ wish that didn't make sense.

You also really wish it didn't look like they were coming from the same island Kairi is stranded on.

* * *

When you get to the island, things go from worse to worst.

"...Guys, I don't think we can fight those," Vanille says. Even Tidus just nods.

"A few, maybe, one or two at a time," he says. "But not... _that."_

The whole island is overrun. The wind is even stronger here, and you'd swear it's darker and colder, too, and now you know where most of the purple lightning was striking. The shores and the trees are _swarming_ with creatures, hundreds of them in all shapes and sizes.

"We can save her," you say, because it's better than thinking about the end of the world. "There's gotta be a way."

"...Right," Tidus says. "Right, yeah. Focus on that."

You're all in the same boat here, in a couple senses of the phrase. Focusing on your mission is the only thing keeping any of you from freaking out about the definitely-not-end-of-the-world, and you're still freaking out about it.

"If we try to come in the front, we'll get all their attention for sure." Riku is the only one here who sounds calm, but... is he, really? "Probably even those big ones in the water. We're going to have to paddle around to the back of the island."

Everyone chips in to keep the rowboat moving smoothly, and the whole way you can tell everybody is equally sure you're all about to die... but you make it, somehow. The things in the water have better stuff to think about, apparently.

The rear of the island actually _is_ less overrun for some reason, so you start paddling the boat closer toward the rocks. If you can just land it _somewhere_ here, there's a winding little path up in the cliff face that leads pretty much right to the scary cave, and Kairi's either in there or she's... she's... well, she's definitely in there.

If you can all just stay quiet and be real careful, then everything might still be okay.

And then Angelo jumps out of the boat and starts swimming for the rocks. Oh, crap, that's right, he loves Kairi, doesn't he?

_"Angelo, come back!"_ Rinoa calls weakly out over the water, but he doesn't. He keeps swimming.

And then, from up over the rocks, creatures start pouring down into the water one by one. But Angelo is a dog, he can't fight monsters, can he? Somebody has to help him.

...Somebody has to, right?

Somebody else, maybe?

Rinoa stands up at the edge of the boat, tossing her knife down onto the floor, and her hands shine with magic that coalesces into thick, sticky balls of flame. She starts hurling them at the stream of monsters.

"Angelo, come back, please, _please,_ come _back!"_ You've never actually seen anyone use magic to fight like this before. The closest thing was Vanille lighting a fire pit without any tools. Rinoa's fireballs crash into the shadows, bursting into bright waves of heat, and a few of them chitter and burn into wisps of smoke.

A few of them, but not enough to make a difference.

Angelo is still swimming, though, and the first of the shadows have almost reached him.

"Angelo, come here, boy! Come back to the boat!" You lean over the edge and join in calling for him, hoping maybe he'll listen to both of you together.

"Guys, keep it down, they're gonna hear us! Guys, _come on!"_ Tidus, clearly panicking, doesn't seem to notice that he's starting to get even louder than you two. Riku grabs your shirt and pulls you back down into the rowboat, covering your mouth. You bite him a little, but he doesn't even notice.

"We have to leave this world. When we get Kairi, she can take us away from here. It's the only chance we have to survive." Riku still sounds like he's not even scared... or like he's even anything, really. His voice is so, so flat.

Rinoa is still calling for Angelo and casting spells. Vanille is just... sitting there, staring. You've never seen her like this. You can't even begin to guess what she's thinking.

"It's okay. Every world has to end someday," Riku says. "That doesn't mean we have to end."

Vanille shuts her eyes for a second. Then, all of a sudden, she stands up, grips her staff tight, and leaps out into the water.

"Vanille, stop! What are you _doing?!"_ Tidus reaches out for her helplessly, but obviously doesn't even come close, since his arms are the length of a person's arms.

The monsters immediately turn from Angelo to Vanille, and they swarm her twice as fast. Rinoa, still yelling, keeps throwing fireballs faster and faster, and then suddenly switches to little spears of ice. She's breathing hard, like she's been running for an hour, or working out or something.

And the first of the monsters finally get to her. Little ones, weird naked dark little shadowy things with big heads and long fingers that wrap around her arms and her shoulders. Something in her chest is glowing bright pink - is that... is that her _heart?_

Is that even possible?

"Rinoa, please stop," Vanille says impossibly calmly. Rinoa does not stop. "Guys, stop her. Rinoa's from a world with weird magic. If she keeps using it like this, she'll run out forever, there's no way to get more on Destiny Islands."

Tidus actually looks shocked to hear that. Did he not know? You didn't know, obviously, but you're not nearly as close to her. He stares for a second, then yanks Rinoa back while she struggles and yells at him.

You feel sick, like you're gonna throw up, or maybe like you're gonna wake up. You _are_ probably about to wake up, right? You're definitely gonna wake up, any second now.

"Sorry for getting myself killed for somebody's dog," Vanille says, laughing a little. Her voice is so... empty. The glowing heart-shape in her chest is getting brighter and clearer by the second as the shadow-things climb all over her. "I didn't really... wanna be here in the first place. And if the world can just end on me... end all over again... I just... I want out."

"No, stop it, please, _come back,"_ Rinoa wails, but it's pretty clear to everybody that Vanille couldn't do that now even if she wanted to, and it doesn't sound like she wants to.

"Sorry, Fang," Vanille mumbles. "If you could see me now, you'd probably... be pretty..."

And then, just like that, the shining heart-shape turns as black as oil and disappears.

And then Vanille disappears, too. One second she's there, and the next... she isn't.

Rinoa elbows Tidus in the stomach and launches a huge blast of lightning down into the water, poofing a handful of monsters into smoke. Then Tidus gets hold of her again and wrestles her down into the boat while she sobs.

"Keep paddling, Sora," Riku says, and you can't even imagine making a decision for yourself right now, so you just nod and get to it.

Angelo's nowhere to be seen. You hope that means he made it up onto the rocks while nobody was paying attention.

The monsters haven't come for you yet, but it's gotta happen soon, right? They...

For an instant, a tiny split second, everything goes black and quiet, like a thick dark cloth suddenly fell over the whole universe. Then it's over.

In the water where Vanille disappeared, there's a new monster that wasn't there before. It's the size of a very very tall person, maybe, inky black shadow instead of skin, yellow eyes glowing in the dark, with what must be at least a dozen long arms fanning out from its shoulders, long ragged strips of pink cloth flowing off them like ribbons, or maybe like feathers from a dead bird's wing.

The new monster turns to the boat for a second, cocks its head to the side like it's curious. Then its arms straighten up above it, and it slips down into the dark water without a sound.

Rinoa finally stops struggling. She leans back against Tidus, who still hasn't let her go, hugging herself.

"I'm scared," she says dumbly, like a little kid. "I don't want... I... Squall, please help me..."

"...Hey, it's okay," you say, and you kinda think you sound even more like a little kid than Rinoa does. "It's not like she's dead, right?" You stare down at the water where the new monster dove away. All of you _must_ be thinking the same thing, right? It's obvious, isn't it? "Maybe... maybe we can turn her back?"

"Sora, we don't know that," Riku says irritably for some reason. "For all we know that thing is just made _out_ of her."

"It _is_ her," you say, because that's bad, but maybe it's a kind of bad you can imagine living with. "It's definitely her, and it's not too late!"

"Maybe... maybe I could... maybe it's not too late," Rinoa says. Tidus shoots you a furious glare and tightens his arms around Rinoa's stomach where he's still holding onto her.

"Nope. No way. Not even taking a chance on that. Riku's right, there's no way to know. Nobody is gonna die tonight just for a shot in the dark."

The look on Rinoa's face is definitely what somebody has on them when they've just been stabbed by somebody they trusted. She slumps back against Tidus again and breaks down sobbing.

"Come on, Tidus, don't be a jerk!" If you weren't busy paddling, you'd get up and give him a better piece of your mind.

"I said, _nobody. Is. Dying. Over. This,"_ Tidus says, biting off the words one at a time.

"Squall..." Rinoa says through her sobs. "Are you still out there? Still... having to hurt people? Am I - am I supposed to hope it's not you anymore? Is it selfish if I... if I still want to believe you were in there somewhere? Even though I'm not there to stop you myself?"

Nobody has any idea what to say to _that._

"We should turn around," Tidus says suddenly. "We should go back. This was stupid. We still have a chance if we all stick together."

"We're not turning around, you idiot," Riku says, sitting up straighter. "None of us is getting off this world without Kairi, and none of us is living through tonight if we don't get off this world!"

"You're hysterical," Tidus says. "I'm sorry about your _mom_ or whatever, but you have to deal with it! We're not all getting killed because of your obsession!"

"Just try and make me," Riku says grimly. "I'm not afraid to push you overboard if that's what it takes."

Rinoa's hardly even moving anymore. She's just sitting there, crying quietly. You want to get in the middle of this, tell them both to calm down, but what if you just make it worse? What happens if they get even madder, and one of them remembers Tidus's sword is still lying in the boat a couple of feet away?

"Rinoa, help me paddle. We've gotta go fast," you whisper. You're afraid she won't even hear you, but she looks up a second later. "Please, we can't waste any time."

...Finally, she nods, wriggling out of a distracted Tidus's grasp, and the two of you start trying to close the gap to the shore, as Riku and Tidus stare daggers at each other. Something tells you neither of them is about to back down.

"Riku. This is your last chance to be a reasonable human being. I'm not screwing... a... round..." Tidus trails off mid-sentence. He's staring over your shoulder, at something behind the boat.

"Tidus, what are..." Riku says, turning to look. His eyes widen.

"Yuna? Is it... really you?" Tidus takes a step toward the back of the boat, past Riku, and everyone turns to see what they're looking at. "Yuna, I... I missed you so much."

He's staring out into the black water, where you can see the thing that formed where Vanille disappeared holding itself above the surface, its many arms paddling serenely.

"Tidus," Rinoa says slowly. "That's... not Yuna."

"What?" He turns to her, confused. "Rinoa, I know she's not _your_ friend, but I think I'd recognize Yuna anywhere, alright?"

"No, that's... uh..." You're not even sure what to say to that. "That's definitely the thing that... that's not even a person?"

Tidus shakes his head. His eyes are wide and glossy.

"I'm not leaving you behind again," he says, and takes another step toward the water. Rinoa lets her paddle clatter to the floor and leaps up, tackling him down into the boat like he did to her just a couple minutes ago. A second later you lurch over and try to help her hold him down.

"Riku, help us _stop_ him," you hiss, but Riku's already busying himself grabbing the paddles you and Rinoa dropped, working them in and out of the water furiously.

"Let me go, you idiots!" Tidus thrashes around like a huge fish on a line. Even you and Rinoa together can barely keep him still - it's not that he's really stronger than you, but he's putting everything he's got into it, while Rinoa is exhausted and you're sorta watching everything from fifty feet away.

"We're not letting you go, you crazy jerk," you say. Tidus goes slack, and for a single stupid second you think you somehow got through to him. Then he lunges forward with all his strength, knocking you off balance, and the two of you tumble down into the freezing water together.

It's cold. It's so, so cold. You don't think you've ever been in water this cold. It's so cold that by the third or fourth second of thrashing toward the surface to try to breathe, it's hardly even cold anymore.

Somebody's screaming. Maybe it's Rinoa, or maybe it's you. And then, suddenly, you feel hands grasping your upper arms, hooking under them, and Riku is hauling you back into the rowboat. You scramble up out of the water, shivering and struggling for breath.

At the edge of the boat, Rinoa's leaning down toward the water, trying to pull Tidus back, but unlike you, Tidus isn't cooperating. He breaks out of her grasp almost immediately, and... there's really nothing anybody can do after that.

Rinoa sobs helplessly, her hands trailing down into the cold water. Tidus swims through the freezing water like he doesn't even feel the cold, toward the monster that might be Vanille, and when he reaches it, seven or eight of those long dark arms unfold from the water and wrap around his back, hugging him close to its chest.

Then the arms get tighter. And tighter. And finally Tidus struggles, but there's nothing he can do, not against eight arms all at once...

And then there's a horrible, horrible _cracking_ sound, and he slumps over, his head hanging loosely against the monster's shoulder.

You're expecting to see the glowing heart-shape again... or maybe you're expecting to see him burst into light. You're too horrified to look away, so you see what actually happens with horrible, perfect clarity.

Tidus's body slowly dissolves into a pillar of black smoke.

And then Tidus is gone, and the monster that might have been Vanille raises its arms again, and once more it disappears beneath the waves.

"...Why did he... what was that? Why didn't he turn into light?" Should you be glad? Does that mean he didn't... die? Does that even make sense?

Rinoa is still crying, still kind of dangling dangerously close to the water. You kind of grab her by the shoulder and try to get her to move. It really only works because she's too floppy to resist, not because she accepts it. Her eyes are red from crying and she looks like she hasn't slept in a month.

"It's gonna be okay," you say, hoping she'll believe it, even though there's really no reason she would. "It's... it's gonna..."

"I'm getting Sora out of here no matter what," Riku says, still paddling. "Are you going to help, or are you going to get in the way?" You turn to glare at Riku, because what the _heck,_ Riku?

Rinoa sniffles, and when she answers, she sounds almost as dead inside as Vanille did at... at the end, there.

"Do you think... Kairi might be in that cave you guys always go to?"

"Why there?" Riku asks, which is weird, because you already thought it was obvious she'd be there, and it seems like Rinoa does too. And it _is_ obvious, because that's the only place she could maybe be and still be okay, and she's _okay,_ so she must be there.

"I don't know. You three spend so much time there. I think Angelo is probably going there, too. He's smart like that, and I'm sure he wanted to find her. Angelo... loves Kairi." She pauses a second before saying 'loves', like she was considering using a different word.

"Just help me paddle," Riku says tersely. She shrugs helplessly and gets to it. You just sit there, shivering and feeling very disoriented and far away, watching them work. You know you should be helping, but...

...You don't even know what the 'but' is, but it's there.

Riku and Rinoa bring the boat around, quietly as they can, and finally you're there, the boat thunking loosely up against the lower edge of the rocks.

"Hey," Rinoa says quietly. "Will it be good enough if you two can get into the cave? Even if you can't get back out after?"

Riku looks at her for a long time, biting his lip a little.

"...Yeah," he says finally. "I can take it from there."

"Riku, what's going on," you say, still hugging yourself to try to capture a little warmth.

"I've tried a lot of different magic tonight," Rinoa says, "and when I used Holy to take out one of the bigger ones before I ran into you guys, it really got some attention. If I stay in the boat and throw everything I've got at them, and you run for it, you'll probably have time to get in there."

"But... what's going to happen to you?" Your voice falters as you try to keep your teeth from chattering.

"Rinoa is going to get out of there and go somewhere safe," Riku says, before she can answer. That makes sense. It would be really dumb to do anything else, right?

"Are you sure you'll be okay?" You have to make sure, is all.

Riku looks at Rinoa. You're not sure what the expression on his face is supposed to mean.

"Yeah," Rinoa says. "I'll be okay."

"...Okay," you say, feeling a little bit more calm. "Okay, good."

"Sora," she says, "Make sure you get Kairi out of there, okay? I can tell you're really important to her." She's still crying, quietly. You're pretty sure she's been crying the whole time.

"I will. Thanks, Rinoa." For some reason, that just makes her cry even harder.

"Time to go," Riku says, helping you up to your feet. He climbs deftly up onto the rocks, then gets down low and helps haul you up after him. You still feel so cold and weak. "Rinoa, are you ready?"

"Sora," Rinoa says, wiping her eyes. "Promise me you'll..." She hesitates. "No, I'm not going to make you promise. Just... please do everything you can for her, okay?"

You just nod.

"Good luck, guys," Rinoa says. "Run."

Riku takes you by the arm and together, you sprint up the narrow path, barely keeping your footing in the dark and the wind, and behind you the rocky shore erupts with light.

* * *

It's dark in the cave, even for a cave that's supposed to be dark. You can only see anything because it's been so dark in general that your eyes are really adjusted.

You look the cave over once. Then twice. Then a third time. But... you don't see Kairi. Where did she go? Where could she be?

Angelo _is_ here, though. He's standing over near the door, snuffling strangely at the open air. Is he... okay? You look away for a second, at the door, which is open for the first time ever, and then back to Angelo, and - _oh._

There's Kairi. She's right there, huddled down low on the floor in the dark by the open door, and Angelo is trying to comfort her, licking her hand while she sobs. How long has she been here, alone in the dark while the world fell apart around her? Guilt stabs through your chest like a fistful of needles.

"...Sora," Kairi says distantly, finally looking up at you. You try to run to her, but Riku grabs you by the arm and stops you.

"Sora, what're you doing? Can't you see he's acting weird? Something might be wrong with him." What? What the heck is Riku talking about? You probably can't break away from Riku in this state, and you don't really want to distrust him enough to try, but... isn't _he_ the one who's acting weird?

"Riku, she's..." Right there, you want to say, but it feels so redundant.

"Damn, I can't believe she's not _here,"_ Riku mutters under his breath. "What do I do, what do I _do,_ what do... I... _oh."_

He's staring at the door, now. That's right, isn't it kinda weird for that door to be open? It's been locked basically your whole lives, hasn't it? But now it's just... thrown wide, and on the other side you can't see anything but perfect darkness, a black so deep it almost makes you dizzy to strain to see anything inside.

And is there... _wind,_ coming from inside the door? That doesn't make any sense at all.

"I see," Riku says, suddenly calm. "I get it. I finally know what I have to do."

"Uh, Riku? What do you mean?" It's hard to place why, but you really don't like the way he's talking right now. You just... want to go run to Kairi, hug her and make sure she's okay. She's still just standing there, crying silently, shrouded in shadows.

Angelo suddenly twitches away from Kairi. He takes a few faltering little doggy steps back toward the entrance of the cave, and... you'd almost swear he's glowing, just a little bit. Or is it just his chest that's glowing?

"The door has opened," he says, like that explains everything, or anything. "The door has _opened_, Sora! Now we can go to the outside world!"

"What are you talking about? What's that got to do with the door?" And... you can't explain it, but something about the way he says 'we' feels very... _specific._ "We've gotta make sure Kairi is okay!" Can't he just let go of you for one second, so you can look?

And what about Angelo? He's lying on the floor, now, panting, and a bright pink light is shining out from his middle.

"Kairi's coming with us!"

He almost sounds angry about it.

"I know, Riku, I just-"

"Once we step through, we'll probably never come back," Riku says, cutting you off completely. "We may never see our friends and parents again. There's no turning back. But this is our only chance. We can't let fear stop us! I'm not afraid of the darkness!"

"Riku, who are you trying to convince?"

He doesn't answer. He finally lets go of your arm, walks towards the door. Then, just before he crosses it, he turns to face you, holding out his hand.

"Trust me, Sora," he says, and it's the first thing he's said since you came in here that sounded like words Riku would say.

You take a step forward, hesitantly. Then you feel... really stupid. It's Riku. This is _Riku._ So what if he's acting weird? People keep turning into monsters and dying, _nobody's_ acting normal. You're sure not acting normal! What are you gonna do, sit here and _not trust Riku?_

No way. Not a chance.

So you follow him toward the door, and you guess also toward Kairi, and toward the dog that's lying motionless on the floor.

And then, from outside the cave, you can hear a girl scream. You panic, turn around and run for the entrance, looking down the path.

The boat is still there, but Rinoa isn't in it.

"Riku," you say, "Where did Rinoa go? She... she went somewhere safe, right? You promise?"

But Riku is still just standing there in front of the door, hand outstretched, waiting, and he doesn't say anything at all.

She's fine. Of course she's fine. You don't have time for Rinoa to not be fine.

You run back across the cave and grab Riku's hand...

...And at that second, the ground starts to shake. You stumble and fall to your knees, grasping desperately for Riku, and the stone underneath you begins to split apart, and you realize all at once that you're not going to make it.

Then Riku reaches out and grabs you by the hand, pulling you across the divide. You don't have time to worry about whether you're being weird or embarrassing yourself, you just wrap your arms around him and cling, like you're afraid the universe will rip him away if you even come close to letting go.

"...Sora..." Kairi murmurs from behind you, and you realize with horror that she's probably on the other side of the widening crack. What's wrong with you? Why do you keep forgetting she's here?

Something heavy and soft flops against the back of your legs and then slips away, and you pretend really, really hard that Angelo's body didn't just fall into the abyss.

And then, like the meanest joke that anybody ever told, you feel Riku starting to pull away. Tendrils of something cold and black and inky are reaching out from the darkness inside the door, wrapping around him, pulling him in.

You stand there, struggling to hold onto Riku while your other hand reaches back to feel for Kairi there in the dark, and the ground shakes, and the tendrils latch on tighter, and as they start to cover him so completely that they brush up against you too, they burn your skin like the coldest ice you've ever touched.

And as the darkness sears you, and the darkness pulls, and the cave comes apart beneath your feet, you lose your balance and fall backwards, onto the other side of the crack.

You look up at Riku as you instinctively shuffle back away from the widening gap. His hand is still outstretched. You can't really see his expression in the dark, but you see his mouth move, all the same.

_"Trust me, Sora,"_ he mouths, and the gap shatters open another foot, and Riku disappears into the dark.

It's just you and Kairi, now. Kairi, who's still standing there, so slight and wrapped in darkness that you'd almost swear you can see right through her.

You reach out your hand for Kairi, the only person left in the whole world. She stares at you like she doesn't understand what's happening.

Then, slowly, she takes your hand...

...And the moment she touches it, she's gone.

"K... Kairi? _Kairi!_ Where are you?" You stumble forward as the cave lurches again, trying to get distance from the crack and the door. "Rinoa? Anybody? Is anybody there?"

But nobody is.

No, wait.

Somebody is.

Some_thing_ is.

At the entrance of the cave, you see it, blocking the only way out. It's the same monster you saw at Riku's house, the one that... the one that hurt his mom, or at least it's the same _kind_ of monster.

Wow.

This is a really dumb way to die.

...Why is this all so _familiar?_

"Oh, that's right," you mumble to yourself as the monster chitters and twitches and stumbles drunkenly toward you. "That's what it was. I saw these things in my dream."

What a silly time to remember something like that.

What a weird dream, too.

There were monsters, tons of them, swarming out of the dark, and... you had a weapon, didn't you? A sword, but not a sword. Something golden and shining and warm. Something like...

...Something like a key.

Something like the key you're holding in your hand right now.

Wait, what? Where did... where did _that_ come from?!

The monster makes that same horrible noise, laughing and drowning and chittering and clanking its rusty armor plates. It extends awful blood-red claws the size of your forearms, and all at once, it moves with a clear purpose, lunging forward to rip you apart.

You grip the key(blade) in both your hands, and you swing.

The key leaves a narrow trail of golden light behind it, like the afterimages of a lantern carried in a dark basement, and it slices one of the thing's arms clean off. It shrieks horribly, stumbling away, wisps of black smoke pouring from the stump.

You kinda can't believe that _worked._

Then, taking advantage of your hesitation, it lunges again with the remaining claw, and this time you're not at all ready, and its heavy armored body bowls you over onto the ground, your head hanging a couple of inches over the abyss. You yell in pain and thrust the key(blade) up reflexively.

The monster stiffens. Then it goes limp and slumps over on top of you, crushing you down against the cold stone, and a second later the weight lessens as it fades away. You must've rammed the key right through it.

You slowly pick yourself up from the ground, bruised and aching, breathing hard, your heart pounding in your chest...

...And all at once, half a dozen more of the monsters are on top of you. They must have wandered in while you were fighting.

You swing wildly, screaming like a scared little kid, and you stumble backward towards the widening hole, and the obvious happens:

You lose your footing and you fall.

You fall down, and down, into the crack in the earth, into the dark. You fall a long way.

Even farther down below you, down and down and down and down in the darkness, you think you can see a distant light like twinkling stars.

...And then you don't see anything at all.


	3. The Hole at the Bottom of the Universe

You wake up real, _ real _ slow. Ugh, what were you even doing last night? Your head is pounding and you're sore all over, and you're lying on something really hard, like a floor or a street.

Something cold and a little wet snoofles against your hand. You wave it away.

"Ugh... quit it, Angelo," you mumble, but the snoofling continues. You force yourself to open your blurry eyes and sit up slowly.

...Oh. That's not Angelo at all. This is a longer, thinner, yellower dog that you don't think you've ever met before. Sure seems friendly, though.

As your eyes come into focus a little, you slowly realize it's still night-time.

Then you realize you have absolutely no clue where you are.

You're lying on the floor of a shadowy alley, paved brown stone rough and chilly against your legs, and it's a clear, cool night, the narrow slice of sky you can see between buildings is bursting with bright stars.

The dog gently fastens his teeth on the wallet chain dangling out of your pocket and tugs.

"Hey, what're you doing, boy? Cut it out!" He doesn't though. Or she? You don't really want to check, but for some reason you're just getting boy dog vibes. He tugs some more, and... maybe he wants you to follow him? Is he not getting fed, or something?

Oh well. You guess you've got nothing better to do.

It's too bad Kairi's not here right now. She's way better at getting animals to not do dumb stuff.

...You stop dead just before you leave the mouth of the alley, feeling like your heart just turned upside down and dropped like an anchor into your stomach.

You run out onto the street, and you don't even slightly recognize the city around you.

The buildings here are weird - kinda heavy and sturdy and grim, but also weirdly whimsical wherever the wooden parts of them are, their dark wooden railings and awnings wavy and intricately carved, and the warm yellow light pouring through most of the windows is inviting. These are definitely not the kind of houses you'd build on a warm island.

It's night-time alright, but the sky is so clear and the stars are so bright that when you combine them with the weird, almost-spooky lanterns all over the place, you can see pretty good.

Wow, the stars really _ are _ bright, and... there sure seem to be a lot of them. You stare at them for a while, trying to decide exactly what it is about them that's bothering you, and then it clicks.

You don't know _ any _ of these constellations. Not a single one.

"Hey, Riku," you say to nobody in particular, "I guess you were right."

The dog leads you on, deeper into the winding streets of somebody else's world.

* * *

A couple minutes later, you've already kinda decided you don't like this place.

It's weird, and gloomy, and everything is just _ off, _ and all the people you see look so unhappy. They look like they've barely got anything to live for. Like... people who forgot what it was like to want to see tomorrow.

You wander around in a daze, not thinking about monsters at all, not thinking about how all the stars are wrong, not thinking about _ (anybody else) _, and then you walk right into...

"Hey, you okay there, kiddo?"

Oh. That man is a bear.

"Uh... uh, I mean..."

That man is a bear wearing pants. They're unbuckled and unzipped to fit his huge sloshy bear stomach.

The bear-man leans down, a worried look on his face.

"Uh oh. You're new around these parts, ain't you?"

"I... don't know? I think so?" When did you become somebody who has so much trouble _ talking? _ Is it just because he's a bear? It's at least a little bit because he's a bear.

The bear scratches his head with his huge bear claws and sighs.

"Well, ain't that a shame. How long you been here, anyway?"

"I... I don't know! I just woke up in an alley a couple minutes ago!"

"Hmmmm," he says, his big bear-brow furrowed. "Hmmmmmmmm. Hey, Pluto, what're you doin' there, boy? Leave the poor kid alone!"

Is Pluto... the dog? Before you have a chance to ask, the bear, who is a man and also a bear, lumbers off to a nearby pile of tools and grabs a rake, shooing the dog away with it.

"There ya go," he says as Pluto scurries around a corner, then slowly peeks his little yellow head back around it to stare at you. "Tell ya what, kid, you're gonna need somewhere to sleep. There's a program for _ displaced folks _, gets you put up in a hotel for a couple weeks to get'cha back on your feet."

"Oh," you say. "Uh... okay?"

"Head on down Sideways Street a block or two 'til it crosses North Star Avenue, then make a left. Another couple streets down and you'll come up on the town square. Run along through there and you'll find ol' Cid's repair shop. Talk to the girl with the braid over there, she'll get you sorted out just fine. Unless they're outta voucher kits... but hey, probably not."

"Uh... down _ what _-ways street?" That wasn't exactly super complicated, but it all just kind of went in one ear and out the other one anyway. You just haven't got room for stuff like directions right now, is all.

"Ah, you know what, it's just about lunch anyways. C'mon, little pal, follow along."

And just like that he heads off down the street, swaying precariously as he walks on two legs, and none of the other downtrodden people on the street give him a second look, even though he's a bear in pants.

Behind you, the yellow dog named Pluto is still trailing along in the middle distance. It's weird. If Kairi was here that'd make sense, dogs can't get enough of Kairi, but you can't think of anything special about you.

Wait, what does he mean by _ lunch? _ Maybe bears just... eat at night?

* * *

The town square isn't anything like the one on Destiny Islands. By comparison it's sort of... nicer, a little spookier, and huge city walls towering above you make it feel oddly cramped, even though it really isn't. There's a lot of interesting stuff here - restaurants, a big postbox, a store with a big sign over it that just says 'ITEM', which you guess probably does cover it - and you kinda wish you cared.

"Alrighty, kiddo," the bear says, pointing up a big staircase toward a building marked 'CID'S REPAIRS', which seems a lot more descriptive than 'ITEM.' "You just head on up there whenever you're ready. Y'ever need any help, don't hesitate to come find your new pal Baloo."

You're just going to assume that's his name. Maybe it's a reasonable name, for a bear.

"Uh, yeah. Sure. Thanks a lot, Baloo." You wish you felt as grateful as you're trying to sound.

He just waves and begins lumbering ponderously back down the street, humming a little bear song as he goes.

Is the repair shop even going to be open at this hour? What time is it, anyway? Oh, hey, there's actually a digital clock hanging on one of the walls of the open-air restaurant over there. It's about...

...It's about... noon.

Oh.

Almost involuntarily, you look up again at the twinkling night sky overhead.

Then you do your best to shake it off and just... get moving. The bear guy is right, shelter's probably super important or something. Having somewhere to be that's not full of depressed people staring would be super great, too.

Just as you're reaching the stairs, you notice there's a big palm tree to one side of them, which seems kinda out of place here. How would that even grow in a town like this? You wander over, still feeling a bit like you're in a dream,

And when you get there you stop dead, because you see something impossible.

One time, maybe two or three years ago, Riku decided you should carve your names into a tree for some reason. Probably he just got a new knife or something and wanted an excuse to use it? You can't really remember anymore. But it was harder than he expected, and even getting started took forever, and then he didn't want to get the blade dull, so he gave up, and you never really bothered to try with yours.

All he actually carved was one big, rough "R", right at his eye level back then, which is about where your eye level is now.

...You stretch out your hand to touch the old gouges in the tree, like you think that if you try to feel them, they'll disappear _ (like Kairi) _. But they don't. They're rough and cold and real under your fingertips.

"How did this _ get _ here?" That just... doesn't make any sense. That's impossible.

"Just showed up yesterday," a passing stranger says, stopping to look. "Must be from another world that just went under. I'm sure we'll be finding more out of place stuff soon enough, once people start noticing whatever's not supposed to be there."

You swallow, hard.

Then you run all the way up the stairs and into the shop, shutting the door a little too hard behind you, because if you can find something different to think about _ right now, _ you might still stop yourself from crying.

Something snuffles at your ankle, and you realize suddenly that Pluto must've followed you right in. You're about to mumble something like 'hey, don't come in here, this place is for people,' but then you think about the talking bear, and you wonder... are _ dogs _ people here? What if dogs have been people all along?

_ (Something heavy and soft flops against the back of your legs and then slips away, and you-) _

...Maybe not _ all _ dogs are people.

"Hey!" A gruff, middle-aged man's voice stabs through the shop, and your head snaps up from staring at Pluto. "Get that dog outta my store. If it's got four legs and it doesn't talk, it ain't comin' in here."

"Oh, uh, sorry?" You crack the door and try to nudge Pluto out; he puts up a pretty good fight, but eventually you get him through and close it up again. "He's not my dog or anything, I don't know why he's following me around."

"So, what can I do for ya?" The owner of the voice steps properly into the room, carrying a big box of scrap metal and dropping it with a deafening thunk behind the counter. Maybe this is Cid? He does seem like the kind of guy who'd had a repair shop named after him.

"A... bear told me to come here? To find a girl? I guess I'm new here, and I don't... have a place to stay, or..." You trail off awkwardly. How do you even explain a situation like this? It's not something you want to _ think _ about in clear terms, let alone lay out for a stranger.

"Old Baloo had you sidestep the bureaucracy, huh?" That's definitely a voice that belongs to a girl, which seems like a step in the right direction, or at least a step in the direction a bear thought you should go. "That guy. Always gotta do things the easy way."

A girl who's a few years older than you - maybe even a Young Woman, just barely - follows the old man into the room, carrying a big staff. She's kind of a stark contrast to the gloominess of everything else in this place, wearing a pink dress and a pink ribbon, her hair in a long brown braid. Her green eyes are bright, and the smile on her face actually reaches them.

"So, what's your name?" She leans forward, putting her elbows on the counter, and motions for you to come closer.

"Uh, it's Sora."

"Nice to meet you, Sora! Welcome to Traverse Town, our lovely little hole at the bottom of the universe." The old man wanders back into the other room as she talks. "Sorry you're here, but just try to remember this, okay? You made it. You're still breathing."

All of a sudden there's a real big lump in your throat. It's... it's not like she's _ wrong, _ but... this sure doesn't _ feel _ like "making it," especially when so many other people, well...

...Didn't.

"Thanks," you say, because you can't think of anything better.

"O-_ kay! _ Gimme just a sec." The girl leans down behind the counter, rummaging around. "Oh, come on, really? _ Cid!" _ She turns her head and yells toward the back room. " _ What'd you do with those vouchers?" _

_ "Behind that big can of oil," _ he shouts back.

"Why would you even... ugh, whatever." She turns back to the counter. A few objects inside thunk around, and then she straightens back up with a tiny grunt and reaches out to hand you some kind of little envelope. You take it, probably visibly confused.

"Uh, thanks, I think? What is this, exactly?"

"It's a voucher kit," she says. "Every new resident gets one. There's a few things in there - cards, mostly. That'll get you two weeks in a hotel and some free food, some other necessities too. Wish we could do more, but things are tight around here at the best of times, and these really aren't the best of times."

"It's okay," you say reflexively, although you're not sure if it actually is. "Do you get a lot of... _ new residents? _ I think there were only a handful back home." Well, that's not counting any kids born to people who weren't native to Destiny Islands, but those are new in a real different way.

"We sure do. There's a reason I called it the hole at the bottom of the universe. When a world's heart gets stolen, more often than not the people and places that survive wind up here." She smiles ruefully. "Guess that's a blessing and a curse, huh?"

"A world's _ heart? _ Is that what happened to... I mean..." It's dumb, but you really don't want to have to say it.

"Yep. Heartless'll do that to ya. Not even the worlds themselves are safe. But hey, let's not dwell on that stuff right now, okay? You should be focusing on getting settled!"

"Uh, right. Yeah. Totally." You slip the envelope into your pocket for now.

"Let's see... oh, right! After your two weeks are up they'll start charging for a room, but it takes a while to work up to full price. There's contact info in there too - shelters, coordinators for shared housing, some people who can help you find work, professional guilds... If you're not an adult where you're from, somebody can help you find a foster family, but you don't _ have _ to do that, so don't feel pressured."

That's, uh... a lot of information, actually, and it's really weird, and really scary, and you really really want to just... go home and change into your own warm pajamas and lay down on your own warm bed in your own room, and sleep for about a week.

But... but maybe this will be okay? Maybe if you try super, _ super _ hard to be positive, this can be kind of an adventure? You _ are _ finally seeing another world, and that's probably cool!

_ (And maybe that's what Vanille told herself every time she smiled that sad, empty smile.) _

"Okay, yeah. That's great." It's not, but maybe anything that's Not Awful right now _ is _ basically your new Great. You're struggling to think of what to say next when you hear the tinkle of a bell behind you and the door creaking open. Huh, you didn't even notice that bell when _ you _ came in.

"Hey there! Welcome to Cid's Repairs, your best stop for fixing whatever you broke. How can I help you today?" The words roll off her tongue so smoothly that you have to wonder how many times she's said that exact sentence.

Well, you might as well turn around and see who's there. Maybe it'll be another bear, or like... a goat, or a lizard with six heads.

But it's not a bear. It's Riku.

You stare at him for a long, frozen second. He stares back.

...No way. Is this actually happening?

One second, you're standing by the counter with your jaw hanging a little bit open, and the next you're all the way across the room, hugging Riku as hard as you can, and tears are streaming down your face, but you really don't have the presence of mind to care.

"I thought - I thought I'd never see you again," you choke out. "You... you got sucked into that door, and I thought you were probably..."

For a moment, just one spooky little moment, you suddenly think to yourself, _ what if it's not Riku, what if I'm just stupid, what if I imagined it, what if I'm just desperate and this is a total stranger, _ but then you feel one of his arms kind of awkwardly encircle your back and pat you like an alien who's never heard of hugging before, and nope, that's definitely Riku.

"I knew you would make it through," Riku says, except he really doesn't sound like he did.

You thought... you thought that even if this happened someday, it wouldn't be this _ fast. _ Like there was going to be some horrible, lonely journey first, and you'd go day after day _ (week after week) _ feeling more and more desperate and hopeless and... and...

And you just hug him, and cry like a little kid.

"Aww. You don't see that every day," the girl with the braid says from somewhere behind you, which, like, maybe that's comforting for her, but it's kind of the opposite for you?

Eventually you reluctantly let go of Riku, trying really hard to remind yourself he probably won't disappear again the second you do. He turns away for a second and raises his arm, doing something to his face that you can't see, then turns back.

"How long have you been here, Riku?" He shrugs.

"Not sure. It hasn't been very long. How about you?"

"I dunno, an hour or something. But I got, uh..." You're about to explain the whole voucher thing, and then you decide that maybe somebody else could just do that. "Actually, you should just talk to her, probably?"

"Sure. Wait for me outside, then."

You're not sure why that's necessary, but it's fine. Riku always has to find a way to make things a little bit weird.

* * *

A couple minutes of failing to get that stupid friendly dog to leave you alone later, and Riku re-emerges from CID'S REPAIRS, looking surprisingly calm about... well, about everything.

"So where are we headed?" You ask, wrestling your wallet chain out of Pluto's slobbery grasp again. "A hotel or something?" Riku shakes his head.

"Come on, Sora, we're in a whole new world! I want to go see the sights!"

He sounds... really, really happy. Maybe the happiest you've heard him sound in a long time, excited in a way he at _ least _ never lets anybody see. And... you know what? He has a point. Now that you're not alone, exploring actually might be kinda fun.

"...Yeah. Yeah, let's do it!" You try to look as confident as you wish you were. Riku grins.

"All right then. First order of business: checking out the town square." He immediately heads down the steps toward the scattered little half-crowd of sad people, and you follow close behind.

He stops, suddenly.

"What the..." What is he looking at? Oh, jeez, right. The palm tree. "No way. That's impossible."

"I think pieces of worlds just... end up here," you say, taking advantage of this rare chance to know more things than he does. "After they... y'know."

"...Right. Sure. Why not." He shakes his head a little, obviously thrown off his game, and the two of you continue to explore.

Traverse Town is _ really, really _ weird, you realize pretty much instantly. Like, it's so much weirder than you thought, even after meeting Baloo. There are so many different people that it's overwhelming, and more than that, there are so many different _ kinds _ of people.

That kid is just a chicken. Like, a chicken, with wings and everything. You're pretty sure a fairy just flittered around a corner and disappeared, and nobody else seems to think that's special. And over there in the open-air restaurant, there's a girl having lunch with, uh, a lion?

Not, like... a lion man, or anything. Just a lion. It's not wearing clothes, either, because it's a lion. It's kind of awkwardly propped up with its rear haunches on a chair, talking animatedly (somehow?), and as you watch, it kinda clumsily bats at the drink on its side of the table, and takes a sip from a straw... _ somehow. _ The girl learns forward, smiling almost dreamily, and like, wait...

"Is that girl on a _ date _ with that lion? Can she do that? Like, can a girl date a guy, even if he's a lion?" Riku turns to look, too. Then he rolls his eyes.

"They're both girls, Sora. Did traveling to another world mess up your brain somehow?"

"What? How the heck can you even tell?" Is he just making that up? It's a _ lion. _ Lions are one of those animals that are only real in stories anyway, it's not like Riku's ever met one.

"Sora, she doesn't have a mane. Get your head in the game already."

You guess he's right, now that you're thinking about it. Huh.

"Wow, I'm glad they didn't hear me, then. Here I was thinking they were on a _ date _ or something. Whoops."

Riku stares for a second, then gives you that Look that says 'I'm super smart and know something you don't, but I'm Riku so I won't explain it, not even if you beg me to.'

"Come on, dumbass. Follow me, I want to go get a better view of the town."

* * *

Riku immediately ducks into a spooky alley, and then he starts climbing a big stone wall. You follow him after just a second's worth of hesitation, hauling yourselves up and up, hopping over onto the roof of a nearby store, and then from that roof to another, higher one where you probably won't be seen, looking down at the sort-of-bustling streets below.

It's kinda like something out of a dream, or one of those really surreal kids' movies Riku always said probably got made while the writers were on drugs. Everything is shrouded in a gentle, endless night, but all the lights of the city spread out below, sparkling and winding through whimsical streets and avenues, and the air is chilly and bracing and full of strange smells.

Watching people scurry around far below you is fun, especially 'cause you can still tell that a lot of them are weird and not at all human, but you're up high enough that you can't tell if any of them have depression.

"Hey Riku," you say, "You seem way less weirded out by all the, like... animal people."

"I guess," he says, sort of indifferently. "It just doesn't seem that unusual, somehow. I think... maybe the world that I was born in might have been more like that, too." He pauses for a second, thinking. "Well, maybe not quite like this. Something like fox people or whatever makes sense, but I have to admit the bears and lions caught me off-guard."

"Yeah, that makes sense. I wonder why we didn't have anybody like that on Destiny Islands."

"Maybe our part of the universe was a lot more human," Riku says, looking up at the stars. "It sounds like Traverse Town is special, somehow. Like... it must attract things from all over the place, not just locally."

"...We're a really long way from home, aren't we? Like, even for world travelers."

"...Yeah," Riku says quietly. "I think that's a pretty safe bet."

* * *

After that you drop back down to street level and get back to exploring, looking at all the weird restaurants and businesses. There are stores selling things you've never even heard of before. There are stores that just sell _ weapons, _ like, real ones, to anybody who has the munny. You even glance in the window of the store that's just called 'ITEM,' and you're pretty sure all the employees are ducks.

Speaking of ducks, there's a store selling some old TVs that are turned on - who knows to what stations, though - and one of them is playing some kind of romantic drama where all the actors are just ducks wearing clothes. Ducks dressed like businessmen, ducks dressed like actors, ducks dressed like movie stars in bright red duck lipstick.

"Why is that show just full of _ ducks," _ you mumble a little nervously. Riku snorts.

"Sora, not every TV show in the universe has to be about you, alright? Don't be that guy."

After that, while you're trying to start working on a mental map of the streets around the square, Riku wants to race you places. He's so much more energetic today than you're used to. It's kinda tiring to keep up with, but... it makes you really happy, too.

He wins, of course, even though you're equally unfamiliar with the shortcuts around here, but it's fun, and you run and run until you're both leaning up against a brick wall somewhere, out of breath and laughing, and a couple of fairies smoking cigarettes in a nearby alley give you dirty looks.

Every so often you catch a glimpse of Pluto somewhere in a crowd, or lurking around a corner, or being distracted from following you by a small animal or an interesting shrub, and once or twice when you let your guard down he sneaks right up on you and gets you by the pants again.

"What is up with that dog, Sora?" Riku asks finally. You just shrug.

"I don't know. He's been following me since I woke up and he keeps on yanking me around."

Riku looks thoughtful at that, but it's not like he has any answers.

* * *

You wander back to the shops again, looking more closely now as your confidence grows. 'ITEM' has a lot of crazy stuff in there - potions and other medical supplies just sold over the counter instead of by prescription, bracelets and necklaces and earrings that claim to be enchanted with all kinds of weird powers, piles of shining crystals that the shop owners clearly assumed were so obviously whatever they are that they didn't need an explanation.

You also peek into a weapon store. There's a wide variety of weapons, too, from swords to spears to axes to shields to rods and staves to throwing stars to whips to weird machines you don't even recognize. For some reason you get the feeling Riku understands what more of them are than you do.

"Hey, you don't think there are any monsters on this world, right?" You ask Riku nervously. "I mean, isn't it a little weird that they're just selling weapons to anybody who wants them? There's gotta be a reason for that."

"...I don't know," he says, after a long moment spent in thought. "But there must be more problems here than we're aware of. If just being full of refugees made a population this downtrodden, Destiny Islands would have showed some signs of that, too."

You don't really like thinking about that. You want to believe everyone here is just sad from losing worlds, losing friends, losing family, because at least that means the loss is over and done with. Shouldn't people who lose everything at least get to keep their second chance?

_ ("And if the world can just end on me... end all over again... I just... I want out.") _

There must be a better explanation. There _ must _ be.

"...Maybe we should buy swords sometime soon," Riku says, and if you had about ten times more munny on you, you'd probably agree with him.

* * *

You definitely don't have the kind of munny you need to buy swords _ (and do you even need one? What happened to that key, anyway?) _, but you're not completely broke yet, either, so Riku ends up lightening the mood a little by taking you to an interesting-looking ice cream store.

"Wow, I don't even know what some of these flavors are," you say to nobody in particular, looking through row after row of colorful, unfamiliar packaging. "I've never even heard of a grombleberry. Is that a real word?"

"I guess it is if you live in Traverse Town. Huh, _ sea salt? _ Really? I got enough ocean back home, thanks." Riku shakes his head in disgust. "Wow. There are too many options. I think we might both have to get two."

"Alright, yeah. Then I'm gonna try out grombleberry," you say. Riku raises one eyebrow, which you've never been able to do. "What? We're exploring another world! I wanna have a new experience!"

"You know what? You're right," Riku says. "In that case... what the hell is a _ peach? _ That can't be real. I'm trying that one just out of spite."

Both of you pick something safer that you already like for your second ice creams; you go for birthday cake and Riku gets double chocolate fudge, as usual.

You sit outside under a weird, kinda spooky tree, eating your ice cream slowly and people-watching. Your grombleberry tastes kinda... purple, maybe? Well, you guess it tastes like grombleberries, and you guess that's pretty alright. Riku is a little disappointed by how "girly" his peach ice cream ends up tasting, but he still eats the whole thing anyway.

This really is fun, though. It's nice. It's exciting seeing all these new things, even if it's also a little scary and overwhelming.

...You just wish more of your friends were alive to see them, too.

* * *

** **

You wake up a small thing, pressed between cobblestones. You try to turn around, to roll onto your back and look at the sky, but you realize you don't have a back to roll onto.

You're sinking, now, into the road. No... not sinking, but folding up, folding in on yourself. Too insubstantial to stay in one place.

The tip of your finger, or something like a finger, the thing at the end of what might once have been a hand, stretches out at the end like a string, trailing far, far away.

Someone else's sky is staring down at you, an ocean of eyes suspended in the black forever, and you realize dimly that you are far, far away from anything that might be home.

...If you follow the string, maybe you'll become real again, you think to yourself, vague like twists in a rising plume of steam.

So you follow the string into town, drifting like scraps of paper on the wind.

It carries you past people, places, things, all in the periphery of your mind for short distant instants. Through streets, under canopies, between trees. To a wall reaching into the sky, and the gate set into it, and beneath the cracks at the bottom.

There, things are different. Emptier. Lacking, like you. Monsters stalk the ruined avenues, screaming miserably, begging for light.

A man and a woman are here, locked in battle with these monsters you somehow recognize. He strikes with a cold fury, eyes peering desperately from behind an expressionless iron mask. She fires strange weapons, deft and flowing across the cobblestones, alert behind the painted image of a warm smile.

The monsters can't see you, anymore. They don't want you, don't even want your light. You watch the battle, and distantly you wish you could help, but you can't even touch them.

_ ((((nothing left to give // how disgraceful // the least of its kind)))) _

You wish them good luck and continue on. Ahead, through further twists of stone and dead lamps, you find a grate in the waterway, and let yourself fade enough to slip through.

Beneath, struggling to have a shape again, to grow new eyes, you sink into the dark water, not real enough to swim.

Far, far below, a fish wearing tiny glasses on its little nose cuts through the black to stare at you, or maybe a Fish, or a man crammed into the shape of one.

"No, no, that won't do at all," he says, shaking out his fins. "You must _ remember _ what you wish to be, whether or not you've been it before. Wanting will never be enough."

Remember... but how can you do that? You're not sure you remember things that _ did _ happen, let alone things that could.

Only, as soon as you've had the thought, you realize you're different. Not a Fish, or a fish, or the shape of anything, but your almost-self is small and fast and graceful.

You zip along through the water before you can think to thank him, soaring along currents until you feel yourself becoming you again, and you paddle toward land.

Back on someone else's street, you see a scary girl with a wicked black star in the palm of her hand walk into an alley in one set of clothes and come back out in another. You don't want her to look at you, even though she can't, so you turn and run as fast as you can.

A few streets down are more people, walking a gray road side by side. A Dog, shining like polish on a shield, and a Duck, glowing like a flare in the night sky.

The Duck looks so much like the ice cream man, except younger, and you miss the ice cream man, so you follow them down the road. They're going the same way you are, anyway, and you have nothing better to do.

Once, you step on the Duck's shadow by mistake; he quacks and stumbles like someone caught hold of his cape, although he isn't wearing one. Looking closer, you see a third shadow, faint, in the space between them.

You try walking on that shadow, but it feels bad, sticking to the bottoms of your not-quite-feet like wet sand.

_ ((((no respect // none at all // what a shameful shackle you are)))) _

You follow them to the town square, trying your best not to step on anyone's shadow, or on no one's shadow, either. The Duck and the Dog talk, but you can't make out the words, even when you're very close by.

Eventually they stop in front of a little shop with four blazing letters hung over its door, and the Duck takes a moment to peer inside. You stop too, to covet some of the shining, wonderful, magical things, but the door is closed and you don't know how to be flat enough to wiggle under, and when you look again the Duck and the Dog are gone.

You drift up a nearby staircase, clinging to its banister, toward another shop with a bright sign, this one longer. Someone walks through you, shivering a little, and opens the door, and you follow them in.

It's warm and soft inside. The other person walks up to a cozy little counter, talking to the girl who's standing behind it; she smiles an easy smile as she responds. When she thinks no one's looking, she leans on her staff a little, and the red flowers buried in her stomach light up, revealing the roots that burrow into her muscles.

You drift by her, back into a workshop full of grease and crystal and hot metal and pots of colorful flowers, and an old man whose skin glints like steel when the light catches it just right. 

He puts the finishing touches on some gadget you don't recognize, then stares blankly out the closed window. A drop of oil runs down his cheek.

The old man fishes a cigarette from his pocket and lights it. The girl from the front room leans through the door and calls back to him.

"I told you not to do that in front of me and the plants," she says irritably.

"I'll smoke wherever the hell I want, girl," he growls, but he stubs the cigarette out anyway. When you turn back to watch her again, she looks like somebody else.

You want to stay here, where it's warm and safe, but you have to ride the smoke out of the chimney in the brief moment it's still there. As you rise high above the town, you wave and wave, even though no one will see, because you want them to know.

And you look down at everything, and you see all these lights and all these people, and you realize that if you followed any one of them they would have their own home and their own story, and you had a friend once who could be friends with everybody, and now you think you understand it.

You understand, because each and every one one of these people, you love them just for being born, and you miss them all so much you could burst, even if they make you a little jealous.

Floating up, you settle in the sky near a tall roof overlooking everything, where two men wrapped in darkness stand, watching the same city, the same people.

One of them waves.

"Well, well, look what the light dragged in," the man with the eyepatch says. "Seems to me like maybe somebody's overslept. You ever think about waking up?"

"Oh boy, here we go again," says the man who doesn't cry anymore. "You know, I can never tell if you're messing with me or if you're finally going senile."

"As if. You know, it's not polite to ignore a guest."

The man who doesn't cry anymore sighs and rolls his eyes. Then he talks to you, instead, although he's looking several feet in the wrong direction.

"Alright, I guess I can play along. How's it going, invisible buddy?"

But the man with the eyepatch is still looking you right in the eyes you don't have, and it makes the skin you don't have prickle with goosebumps, so you let yourself float higher, and then you finally open your eyes.

* * *

You remember your name.

You remember _ his _ name.

Everything is blurry, like it's on the other side of a fogged-up pane of glass, the world slowing down and speeding up again every time you lose focus.

Sora and Riku sit in the shadow of a crooked tree, laughing, throwing the tacky remains of ice-cream sticks at each other, and your heart hurts, deep inside.

_ ((((petty // vile // love has never looked like this)))) _

You're... still not real. Still not really here. But now you can look down and see your own knobby knees and stick legs. You could've been anything, but you're still you.

Sora and Riku talk more as you watch them. Their voices are distorted, hard to follow. Sora is different when he's with Riku. You want to look, because he's Sora, but you don't want to look, because he isn't _ your _ Sora.

You're getting awfully slow and weighty for something that doesn't really take up any space. Harder to move, harder to think. They're okay, and that's good to know.

...But maybe it's okay to go back to sleep, now.

Goodnight, Kairi.

Goodnight, Sora.

* * *

"Whoaaaa, Riku, check it out, there's a '_ microwave' _ in here! I don't even know what that is!"

"...Sora, is this your first time being in a hotel?" Riku looks like he's trying not to laugh while you run around your hotel room looking at all the weird stuff in here.

"Yeah, why wouldn't it be? Whoa, tiny shampoo and fancy tiny soap! This is awesome!"

Riku gives a look that says plainly that he has no idea what's awesome about tiny soap, but he's basically glad you're happy. He kicks off his shoes and sits down on the hotel bed, sitting up against the wall, then picks up a remote control from a nearby table and turns on the TV.

"I wonder what channels they get out here," he says. "Hopefully more than seven."

"Why would they need more than seven? If you've got that much stuff to watch, most of it should probably just be movies." You struggle with yourself for a moment and successfully resist the urge to squeeze out some tiny shampoo just to see if shampoo is weird here.

Eventually you get a little bored of exploring a very small hotel room, and plop onto the bed next to Riku, who's surfing through a _ lot _ more than seven channels.

"Wow. Some of these are sorted by world of origin. That's crazy," Riku says, totally enraptured. "So they're picking up signals from other _ worlds, _ somehow..."

For a second you wonder if maybe they're getting anything from Destiny Islands. Then you remember that nobody is getting anything from Destiny Islands, ever again.

"What kind of world name is 'Zootopia?' It sounds like somewhere you'd pay fifty munny each to take your kids." But he clicks over to the channel anyway. "Oh, they're all animals, except they're standing up like people. I mean, like humans, I guess? That weasel's dressed like a chef, so he's definitely a person."

You watch for at least half an hour, commenting on the increasingly bizarre movie. At first it just seems like a pretty normal drama, but then it gets really messed up! Animals are eating each other, and the predators are all wearing shock collars that go off if they get too excited. It might be horror, or maybe it's just horrifying to you.

The special effects are actually not that good, and you can tell there's some kind of social commentary that's totally going over both your heads, but it's still hard to put it down, although your conversation eventually drifts off topic.

"I wonder if you can have a sword job here," Riku mumbles. "Like, a job where you use a sword." All the animal violence and incomprehensible politics are starting to make him a little stupider than usual. "A sword job."

"Maybe? I mean, probably, right? If you can just buy a sword at a store, people must be using them for something." You really don't know if you'd _ want _ a sword job. You kinda think maybe chopping off one arm was more than you wanted to do in your entire life.

"Yeah... we should lie and tell everyone we're adults."

"Huh?! Why?" Where did that even come from?

"Sora, they're not going to know any better. Some of these people are lions. You could probably tell them you're fifty and they wouldn't bat an eye. Or a mane."

"Yeah, maybe, but... why?"

"They're not gonna let us have a sword job at fifteen, Sora," Riku explains patiently.

"I'm fourteen," you say, looking down at the bed.

"Then you understand why it's important even better than I do. We can be as old as we want, Sora, nobody knows us. We're free! We can do anything. We can _ be _ anything."

You're not quite sure about that. Somehow you're pretty sure that no matter what you tell anybody, you'll still be Sora.

"Well, let's figure that out _ after _ we find out if they have sword jobs," you say, and leave out the part about figuring out if you want one.

A couple of minutes later, Riku mutes the TV.

"...Sora," he says, "Do you know what happened to Kairi?"

...Oh. Well... you guess it probably is time to talk about this, huh?

"Kinda," you say, struggling for a way to put it into words. "But also not really. I tried to grab her hand, and she just disappeared."

"Wait, you found her?!" He looks shocked for some reason you can't even begin to guess at. "What do you mean, disappeared?"

"I mean, one second she was there, and then I touched her, and she just... wasn't anywhere. She's not... she's not _ gone, _ right?"

"No," he says. "No, she can't be. It wouldn't even make sense. I'm not saying any of this makes sense, but people don't just die without being killed."

You just nod. Stare at the silent TV. Bite your lip.

"Riku, did you tell Rinoa to die for me?" You ask it all at once, in a rush, before the moment passes and you lose the courage to do it for the rest of your whole life.

Riku stares at you for, like, five seconds. He swallows, and then finally looks you in the eye.

"She volunteered," he said. "I could have stopped her. But I didn't."

You feel kind of like you've been punched in the gut, even though you honestly already knew. Did you... _ want _ him to lie to you? No, of course not, that's not right. It just... it's...

It's hard, is all.

"I feel bad," Riku says quietly, "But I don't regret it."

"...I know," you say, because 'I forgive you' is too much to stomach, and also because you're not actually sure if there's anything to forgive.

"Do you hate me?" This time, he looks away as he says it.

"Of course I don't," you say, and you're glad that at the very least you know _ that's _ the truth.

There's a long pause, again.

"Sora, I don't want to settle here. In Traverse Town, I mean. I'm fine with staying for now, but someday I'm going to want to move on."

How can he know that well enough to say it so confidently? How can anyone know himself that well?

...You're not even sure if it's _ possible _ to move on from this place.

"When I leave," he says slowly, "do you think maybe you'd want to-"

Suddenly, somebody knocks on the door. Riku jolts up, grabs the remote control, and shuts off the TV for no apparent reason. The two of you walk over to the door together. You're not sure why _ you're _ nervous, but if Riku's nervous, maybe you should be?

He opens the door maybe a third of the way. Out in the hall, there's a short black-haired girl in some kind of uniform. She looks kinda like she's dressed to give somebody a tour in a museum, with a sort of professional-looking dress and a matching hat.

"Hi there, and welcome to Traverse Town! My name is Aeris Gainsborough, and I'll be your tour guide this evening." She blasts you with a huge, weirdly toothy smile.

"Uh... _ tour _ guide?" You guess you were right about that outfit, at least. Go you.

"Yep! For the resettlement program, of course! I'm here to show you around your brand new home."

"No," Riku says, and moves to close the door. Aeris wedges her foot in the gap, still smiling.

"Aw, come on Riku, it could be fun." He stares at you incredulously, like you just said going to the dentist is your favorite way to spend a Saturday.

"Sora, we don't need a... _ tour. _ We did that ourselves. An hour ago."

"Yeah, but we're new here! Who knows what cool stuff we might've missed?" And if you go on a tour, then you'll be out of this room, and if you're out of this room, you'll be out of the conversation you were just having.

"Yeah," Aeris says brightly. "Traverse Town is a wonderful place, and it's just _ full _ of wonderful little secrets. I promise you won't regret it."

"Riku, _ please? _ If you don't go, I'm still going to." One way or another, you are taking a break from that conversation. You've decided this and you're not going back on it.

Riku sighs, a long, pained sigh that takes him at least two seconds to finish.

"..._ Fine," _ he says bitterly. "But you owe me."

* * *

The tour is... kinda erratic, though. She just keeps zipping around from street to street, and it feels like you're walking way farther between each stop than you actually need to.

"That's the item store! If you're looking for just about anything useful, that's your place."

She leads you between landmarks, some of them cool, some of them weird, and some of them inexplicable, all with the same toothy grin.

"And this is the old Gizmo Shop! It's broken right now, and it'll probably always be broken, but we love it anyway. Oh, and sometimes there are Heartless in there."

"Wait, there are _ what?" _ You're not sure what that means, but you think you might have heard that word somewhere else today, and also it actually sounds pretty bad.

"Yep! So watch out for that. They'll get'cha!"

It feels like in no time at all, you and Riku are both pretty worn out from trying to keep up. Aeris is doing fine, though, and eventually you realize she's not actually walking as much as you are; she keeps sending you between streets and just kind of standing there, keeping line of sight.

Maybe she has to give tours to a bunch of people, so it's better to conserve her stamina?

"And that's Leon! He's, uh... Leon. Hi, Leon! _ Around that corner. Go. Go." _ A tall, kind of intimidating looking guy glances at her in confusion as she yanks on your sleeve and hustles you to the next location.

You don't even know what time it is anymore. At this point you've pretty much figured out and accepted that it's always night-time here, even if that's pretty disturbing, and it's not like you wear a watch or anything.

"Okay, we're finally coming up on our last stop, boys! This one's a real doozy!"

Disoriented and exhausted, the two of you follow her onto a dim side street in a relatively empty part of town.

"You go first, buddy," Aeris says, kind of shoving you deeper down the street.

And then, suddenly, something cold and sharp is pressed up against your throat.

"Wh... whoa, what," you sputter, freezing up.

_ "Don't move a goddamn muscle," _ Aeris hisses. One of arms is pinning yours to your stomach helplessly, and the other one is definitely probably holding a knife against your actual neck.

"You piece of... let him _ go," _ Riku growls.

"Quiet down there, tall dark and broody," she spits. "You make one false move and your boyfriend here gets it."

"Uh, I really don't wanna get it," you mumble, a little too shocked to take this seriously.

"Now hand over every last munny you've got." Wait, wait, is this like... actually happening right now? Wow, you really didn't see _ this _ coming.

"Is this a _ mugging?" _ You ask, feeling like you're in a really stupid dream.

"You bet your sweet little ass it is. Now shut the hell up before I gut you like a fish!"

"We don't have any munny, we're _ refugees," _ Riku lies pretty convincingly. To be fair, you don't have enough munny to do anything important with it.

_ "Bullshit," _ Aeris says through gritted teeth. Riku shakes his head.

"No, uh, really, we're like... fifteen," you say half-accurately. "I wasn't really carrying my allowance to the end of the world?"

"Dammit," she hisses again. "_ Useless. _ Ugh." The knife presses a little tighter. It stings just a little bit, so it's definitely a real knife. "Fine, then. Ration cards, hotel passes, whatever you got. Fork 'em over."

"We need those to... live?" you say hesitantly, and then wince as you feel the blade parting your skin ever-so-slightly.

"I think you need that neck to live a little more, buddy-boy," she says, without a trace of sympathy.

"...Fine," Riku says, gritting his teeth.

Twenty seconds later, your hotel passes and ration cards and everything else have disappeared into her pockets. Everything other than the thirty munny you accidentally left in the other pocket instead of your wallet, and however much munny Riku hopefully has stashed somewhere.

"Cool!" She chirps, suddenly cheerful. "Great doin' business with ya, kids. Have a nice night!"

And before either of you can try to stop her, she flits out onto a larger street, and when you round the corner she's long gone.

"...Welcome to Traverse Town," you mutter under your breath.

Riku punches a wall and immediately regrets it.

* * *

"Hey Riku, check out this cool tarp," Sora says half-heartedly. You sigh and take a look. It... sure is a tarp, and as far as tarps go, it could probably be worse.

"Great, well... Maybe we _ won't _ freeze to death."

"Aw, I don't think we'd freeze to death anyway, it's not _ that _ cold."

"Not yet. It's still five in the afternoon, somehow. For all we know it's going to get even darker." Honestly, you don't expect that. If there's no daylight at all, then there's probably no cycle of darker and lighter anyway, but right now you're just not willing to rule out anything terrible that might happen.

A couple minutes later you've cleared some dust and random stuff out from the room you're hiding in deep inside this abandoned house, and you sit on the floor together up against a wall with the tarp over your legs.

"This is really bad, actually," Sora says. You nod wearily.

"...It is _ too _ that cold," you mumble. Now that you're not moving around constantly, you can really feel the chill of that eternal just-before-midnight. "Hmm... I'm going to light a fire. Crack that window a little so we don't choke and die on the smoke?"

Sora does it, and you gather up a little pile of the least gross abandoned trash you can find and set it in front of you. He stares at you quizzically.

"How are you gonna light a fire? You don't have a lighter. Or, like... flint... or... anything."

"I have my ways," you say. "Hey, what's that over in that corner?"

Sora turns to look. You quickly reach your hand out toward the trash, palm open... and you think about that girl, Aeris, and how angry it made you to realize she was betraying you, and how much you wanted to hurt her when she put that knife to Sora's throat, and you _ focus. _

A little black flash pulses in front of your hand, and the trash bursts into flame, merrily crackling away.

"I don't see any... whoa, Riku, how'd you do that?" Sora's eyes are wide with child-like wonder.

"Trade secret," you smirk. He rolls his eyes.

"You suck," Sora says, but he smiles a little as he leans forward to let the trash fire warm his hands up.

"Are you hungry?" you ask, already knowing the answer's going to be the same as yours.

"...Yeah, kinda. Are you really out of munny like you said?"

"Not quite," you admit. "I think I've got sixty left, or maybe a little less."

"Nice! I have thirty somewhere, so that's gotta be enough to buy _ some _ food, right? I mean... at least enough for one night?"

"Yeah," you say. "At least enough for one night. Tell you what, you hold down the fort here. I'm going to go get some air and find us something to eat."

Maybe if you're lucky, you'll run into that Aeris girl again and you can give her a piece of your mind. Either way, you need to burn off some energy before you start getting short with Sora for no reason.

"Alright," Sora says, leaning back against the wall with his arms crossed behind his head. "...Be careful out there, okay?"

"I always am," you say, even though that's _ demonstrably _ untrue.

* * *

You spend half an hour trying to decide what's worth eating, and eventually you settle on two packages of raw hot dogs and one big water bottle you can share and probably refill from one of the handful of dubious-looking wells nearby, or, you know. The sewer. That would suit you pretty well at this point.

Sora's excited about the hot dogs, at least. You gather some sticks from outside and impale the hot dogs on them, roasting them over the trash fire, which Sora's actually done a good job of keeping alive.

"Hey, maybe this isn't gonna be... the _ worst," _ Sora says hopefully. "I mean, yeah, this is really bad, just terrible, but it's also kinda like camping! We're roasting hot dogs! Hanging out! In a whole new _ world!" _

"...Yeah," you say, and you're a little surprised that you actually do agree. This is bad. It's really bad and you don't like a lot of it. But you're also not sitting in your room with a bookshelf pushed in front of the door because there's no lock, trying to pretend you can't hear Mom throwing empty beer cans at the wall and yelling at no one.

The hot dogs are good. They even taste like hot dogs, which is unexpected considering you're on another world. Maybe some things are just the same wherever you go.

After they're all gone you kill time talking about interesting things you've seen, and people you met, and how you're definitely going to track down one Aeris Gainsborough tomorrow and kick her ass. If you just ask around, _ somebody _ will have to know her.

Eventually the conversation winds down a little. You stoke the fire one last time, not really expecting it to keep burning overnight, and you pull the tarp up high like a blanket.

"You're hogging the tarp," Sora says instantly, elbowing you in the side.

"You're spreading your limbs all over the place like a moron," you counter, reluctantly giving him another two inches, but there's not exactly a whole lot of tarp to go around.

"...Maybe we could do Pirate Encounter again," Sora says sleepily. "Make some munny that way."

It's not the worst idea you've ever heard. Except, no, wait. You won't have Kairi to hold the camera, and you won't _ have _ Kairi's camera, and you won't have Kairi to paint anyone's faces and be publicly likable, and you don't have any supplies whatsoever because all your belongings are dead and gone with your world.

"...If... When we find Kairi again," you mumble, "I really have to apologize to her."

"Huh? What for?"

"I just realized Kairi was seriously carrying Pirate Encounter. Think about it, Sora. She took the pictures, she provided the camera, she painted faces, she did most of the advertising, she was better at talking to parents... The only thing she couldn't do was the swordfighting, except you talked her through it just fine, so I'm sure with half an hour of practice she wouldn't have needed us for anything."

"Wow," Sora says. "You've got a point. Without Kairi, Pirate Encounter would have sunk the second it left the shore. I guess we'll have to think of something else."

You fall into a quiet, tired silence after that. Sora shifts over a little, trying to steal more of your tarp, and ends up with his shoulder kind of pressed against yours. You'd push him off, obviously, except it really _ is _ cold in here, and he's a source of heat, so... you'll have to tolerate it, at least for a little while.

"Maybe we have everything we need," you say, without really meaning to. "Well, not everything, but... maybe we don't need as many things as we thought we did."

"...Maybe," Sora says after a long pause.

The two of you sit there, huddled like the homeless people you are under a tarp in the warm glow of burning garbage, and you don't think about Kairi, not even a little bit. A few minutes later, you hear Sora snoring.

And a few minutes after that, you're asleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The human girl and the lion girl are on their first date tonight, but it won't be their last. Even at the bottom of the universe, love finds a way.


	4. We Have To Kill Aeris Gainsborough

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> To be clear, we're spelling her name Aeris because we like it more that way, and also because we're trying to write her much more closely to her original portrayal in FFVII, as opposed to the kind of soft floppy noodle person she became for every subsequent appearance.
> 
> Also, there are going to be lots more original Heartless in here, and some familiar ones will have design changes.
> 
> ALSO also, we aren't super familiar with Ducktales (WOO-OOO!), but we're going more off of the older show for characterization, rather than the newer stuff.

One second, you're huddled up against the wall in the abandoned house next to Riku, pretending the tarp is comfortable, and the next second, you're opening a door into an unfamiliar room as the world materializes around you.

Everything feels kind of... warm and fuzzy. Not blurry, exactly, but... out of focus. The room you step into is really strange. Everything's white. Like, not in some magical way, but... a white canopy bed fitted with white sheets, indistinct against white-on-white wallpaper, a chilly white marble floor.

It's all so off-putting that for a second you don't even notice Kairi sitting on the bed.

Your heart kind of clutches up into your throat. Kairi smiles a little sheepishly and waves.

"Hi, Sora," she says, and you remember everything. Like... all of it. You swallow hard, and you're crying before you even have time to be embarrassed about it.

Kairi comes over to you, removes a little white handkerchief from her pocket - lacy, with a pattern on it that might be cats - and awkwardly tries to wipe away some of the tears, which is a weird enough thing to do that you're instantly sure this is the real, actual Kairi.

"What's wrong?" she asks, but it sounds like she already knows.

"I'm dreaming," you sputter out, wiping your eyes, "And you're... you're..."

...You don't even know how to finish that sentence, because you're not sure  _ dead _ is exactly the right word, but maybe it's a lot more right than you want it to be. Kairi nods sadly.

"It's okay," she says. "I'm okay." You're not sure how  _ dead-ish _ has anything in common with  _ okay,  _ and you try and fail not to sniffle some more. Kairi hugs you.

It's weird. You feel weirdly, uncomfortably aware of her small, fragile body, her tiny bird bones that feel like they'd be way too easy to break. It wouldn't take a lot to hurt Kairi. You hug her too, not at all sure whether you should squeeze her or just put your arm around her back.

It takes you a second to notice it, but she's cold.

You pull away, try to collect yourself a little, and absolutely don't.

"Kairi, I'm so sorry," you say, your voice cracking. "I'm sorry I couldn't save you. The world was ending, and there were monsters, and..." And everybody died trying to save her. "And we got to the cave somehow, but Riku couldn't see you or something, and then you were gone, and I..."

Kairi hugs you again.

"I'm fine, really. You came to visit me, so I'm happy." Maybe she is. Maybe for her, it really is that simple. You sort of hope it is, and you sort of hope it's not. You sniffle again. "Will you come sit with me?"

Both of you plop down onto the white bed. Kairi leans against your side a little. She's still so cold.

The bed is facing a window where the light comes in, pouring almost painfully clearly through a big arch with thin white curtains. Outside the window you're pretty sure you can see parts of a  _ castle, _ even though you've never been to a real castle yourself, towers and walls and banners rising up against the bright blue sky.

"Where is this?" You know  _ you've _ never been here before. You're not sure you've even seen any places quite like this in movies.

"This used to be my room," Kairi says. "Isn't it pretty?"

"I think it looks pretty lonely," you say, although maybe that's rude.

"...I can't say it wasn't," she says quietly, "But it was safe, and it was warm."

You both lean back, kind of flopping the rest of the way onto the bed, almost close enough for it to be weird. It's awkward, but not in any especially horrible way.

"Remember when we were really small," you say suddenly, "and everybody let us sleep in the same bed when we slept over at each other's houses and Riku wasn't around, 'cause we were too little for anybody to be worried that we'd, like... do anything?"

"It was nice," she says after a long pause. "Comfy. I was... just a kid who got nervous in the dark. And you were just a kid who kept panicking about weird shadows. I remember one time when we woke up in the middle of the night we made a monster trap and put it in the middle of the floor."

"Oh yeah, I almost forgot about that. We both knew that wouldn't actually have worked, right?"

"Yes, but it made us feel better enough to go back to sleep."

You remember it painfully clearly now. You fell asleep again with her head tucked under your chin and her huge stuffed animals guarding your back, and then...

...And then eventually it was the last time you ever slept like that, except you didn't know it would be the last time, and it wasn't because either of you stopped wanting to, but because everybody else made it feel like you were trying to get away with something weird and dirty, and then you didn't get to be the same thing anymore, even though in every other way you were.

It all just feels so unfair. Does she think of it that way, too? Does she ever think maybe it would've been better if... ugh, you don't even  _ know _ what if, you just...

"I wish I was just a person, and you were just another person," you say, because that's as close as you know how to get.

"...Yeah," Kairi says, and she sounds small and tired enough that you're pretty sure she knows exactly what you mean.

"I wish I was a person at a nice hotel," you say, "and you were also a person at a nice hotel." Kairi giggles.

"We could be people who go to sleep here," she says.

So you try to. Nobody's around to make everything be weirder than it is, so you try to kind of hold each other again, like you were kids,  _ (not wondering if this will be the last time for real, the last time for everything) _ , but it's not right somehow. She feels so weird and cold. And she's kinda lighter than she should be, so much so that you can tell even though you're not trying to pick her up.

Eventually she gets on the other side of the blanket so your skin isn't touching, and that feels... so bizarrely cruel, somehow, in some way you can't really put into words, but it almost works, and eventually you drift off to sleep.

* * *

You wake up shivering. Wow, when did it get so cold in here? It's not morning yet, everything is still dark... no, wait, there is no morning here, is there? For all you know it's noon again, although you kinda doubt it, considering how bleary-eyed you feel.

You're just about to try to fall back asleep when a weird crackling noise startles you into alertness. What  _ is _ that? Is it... coming from inside the room?

Nervously, you push Riku's head off your shoulder and elbow him in the side, struggling to make your eyes focus enough to see into the shadows in the corners of the room. And then, something moves.

"Wake up!" You elbow him again, harder, and he curses and shoves feebly in your direction. "There's something in here!"

There's a weird blue glint in the far corner of the room, and you're struck by a weird reflex and jerk your head to the side, narrowly avoiding something that whizzes right past your ear.

"Whoa! Whuh? What's going on?" Riku pushes himself upright as you leap to your feet, glancing behind you. There's... what the heck? There's a big shard of  _ ice _ lodged in the wall, like a knife would be if somebody threw it really hard.

You're about to say something else, but there's another weird crackling noise and another weird glint, and you have to throw yourself down to the floor to avoid another speeding shard of ice. Riku stumbles over to you and yanks you up by the hand that doesn't have a giant key in it.

Wait, what?

"Sora, what is that thing?"

"Uh, the monster?"

"No, the thing you're  _ holding," _ he snaps, glancing frantically around the room.

"I don't know, it's... uh... Wow, that's a weird monster," you say, distracted by the odd little blue bobbing lantern-like thing that's sharing the room with you. It's like... a weird dark little face with glowing eyes, crammed into a painted frame. Everything near it is caked with a thin layer of frost.

"Stay back, Sora," Riku says, lifting up a bar stool that you never even noticed was in the room, given all the dusty old garbage piled on everything. You kinda think that's going to do less good than the magic key you chopped off a monster's arm with, but you guess that if you're being fair, Riku wasn't there to see that.

He lunges across the room, swinging the bar stool around like an awkward club, and the lantern monster bobs out of the way like a fishing lure on the surface of the water. Eventually his wild swings become more focused, and he finally clips it with the edge of the stool, knocking it out of the air.

"Die, you stupid thing!" Riku pounds it over and over with the bar stool. You're not sure if the cracking sounds are from the monster's frame buckling or Riku's bar stool slowly giving up the ghost as he abuses it. Then the leg he's holding suddenly breaks off and the rest of the stool thunks against the far wall, so you guess that answers that question.

"Come  _ on," _ he growls, flipping the big hunk of wood around in his hand to grip it with both hands. Then he kind of falls on top of the desperately warbling monster, driving the jagged broken-off stump right into its face. It twitches violently, and then dissolves into black smoke.

Riku tosses the broken leg aside and falls back onto his butt, gasping for air. You feel a little bit outdone despite the gleaming magic weapon in your hand, but... you know, that's fine. He probably  _ really _ needs to feel useful right now.

"Nice one, Riku," you say lamely, and then the deafening sound of distant sirens rips through the air. Riku looks at you. Then he looks at the space where he was hitting the monster.

Then he picks the stool leg back up and runs outside.

* * *

The streets are mostly deserted now, like, even more than usual in this rotting part of town. In the distance you can see doors slamming shut, and the shadows of people inside the few livable houses around here closing their windows.

"Is that a  _ monster alarm? _ Is that a thing they have to have in this world?" You don't like how high and anxious your voice is right now.

"Maybe," Riku says tersely, scanning up and down the street. "Either way, we've got company."

There aren't a  _ lot _ of monsters, at least not where you can see, but there are a couple weird fat little shadowy things squirming at people's closed doors, and another one of those weird twitchy armored ones is sauntering down the road in your direction.

"Let's... see what this thing can do," you say, gesturing with the key you've still got clutched in your sweaty hands. You're still not doing a great job of sounding braver than you actually are.

Then you hesitate. Couldn't you just... run? You could try, right? It might even work, and if they have  _ sirens _ for monster attacks here, there must be somebody around who knows how to deal with them, somebody way more qualified than a couple of scared teens.

...Except those monsters are scratching at doors, doors that must have  _ people _ on the other side of them, and suddenly you're thinking about Riku's mom's clothes on the kitchen floor, bodies curled up in dark puddles in the firelit night, the cracking sound you heard when Vanille's monster crushed Tidus in its arms.

You  _ know _ this key _ (blade) _ thing you've got can hurt monsters. And... maybe you don't want to be the person cowering helplessly in the back of the boat, soaked in cold water, hoping someone else will solve the problem. Maybe you've done that enough for one lifetime.

"Sora, this doesn't have to be our problem," Riku says, and you wonder if he's worrying about himself or about you.

"Nah," you say, and you're surprised to find your voice comes out steady. "We've got this."

And you charge for the nearest monster.

It turns around when you get close, this plump little clot of darkness with big curious eyes and frantic antennae. It leaps at you like a drunk, overweight cat, and your key flashes out and cleaves it in half.

"Whoa," you say to nobody in particular. "That really does work."

A couple more of the things are already loping at you, and you turn to meet them, feeling a little bit more in control of the situation even if your nerves are screaming dully in the back of your mind. The first one to come at you goes down easy, all but impaling itself on your key.

The second one takes advantage of the opening, and its little claw-hands scrape a hot line through one of your sleeves. You hiss in pain and back up, frantically swinging at the open air in front of you, your composure slipping.

"Sora,  _ behind you!" _ Riku yells from somewhere also behind you, but the little shadow is lunging again and you're too busy clumsily lopping off its head to pay attention as something larger looms over your shoulder.

Oh crap. You're gonna die, aren't you? You were dumb and overconfident and you're already gonna die.

You turn around, slower than you ought to, like those moments of fear in a nightmare right before The Bad Thing Happens, and the big clunkier armored one with the long claws is  _ right there, _ already about to bring them down into your face.

Then it stiffens. Croaks. Stumbles.

And collapses forward as you hop out of the way, its back sizzling with weird dark flames.

As the monster melts away into smoke, you stare in amazement at Riku, who's standing there with his free hand outstretched and wrapped in a thin layer of black fire.

"Whoa," you breathe. "Holy crap. How did you  _ do _ that?"

Riku looks down at his hand like he's as surprised as you are... or, no, maybe not. He doesn't seem surprised it happened, exactly, more like... surprised it  _ worked. _ The flames sputter and disappear, and Riku shakes his hand out.

"...It's a long story," he says, as if he's expecting that to be enough.

In the distance, the blaring sirens suddenly cut off.

"Was that... it? It's over?" You can hardly believe that. Does it make sense for there to just be... a  _ small _ monster invasion? Like, not even a world ending, but just... some things?

Is it an invasion at all, or is it normal for monsters to be here?

"I guess so," Riku says, gesturing at the doors and windows that are re-opening all along the street. The people coming back outside don't even look that scared. A little on edge, sure, but... this obviously wasn't a surprise to any of them. "Where did your key go?"

"Huh?" You look down at your hands, and sure enough, it's gone again. "Oh. Weird... maybe it's gone 'cause I don't need it anymore?"

For now that's the best guess you've got.

* * *

After talking to a couple of people, you have a pretty clear picture of what's going on here. These monsters...  _ Heartless, _ you guess, which seems like a pretty fitting name for those jerks, absolutely do just kind of exist here. Not that this is where they  _ come _ from, but yeah, they're a problem.

There are two sirens, in fact. One of them's the siren you heard today, which means Everybody Get Inside, There Are Some Heartless. The other one hasn't been heard outside of safety drills in years, and it means The World Might Be Ending And You Should Panic.

"So... if you don't  _ have _ any shelter to get to when the Heartless show up..." You trail off uncomfortably.

"Yeah. You're screwed," Riku says, glaring at a nearby tree like he wishes it was a lot more punchable. "I did kind of wonder why nobody was already squatting here, what with all the homeless people."

"Probably the busted door and windows," you say, thinking back to how some of the Heartless were ineffective enough at destroying wood that it gave you time to clear them out before anyone was in too much danger. "We could break up some of the spare furniture, maybe? Try to find some nails and start boarding stuff up?"

"Sora, I'm sure some boards aren't going to hold them back for long. I doubt  _ doors _ are good for more than a minute or two, and that's against the small ones."

"Maybe if we like... sealed it with garbage bags, and it seemed more solid? Maybe they wouldn't even know there was anybody in there."

"...Garbage bags?" Riku stares at you incredulously. You shrug. "No, that's... I mean, maybe if we had some actual sealant... but I don't have any idea where to find a hardware store in this place, and we spent the last of our munny on raw hot dogs."

"I guess we could try to earn some, somehow," you say lamely.

"Or just  _ steal _ some sealant," Riku says, looking pensive like he's actually considering that.

"Maybe we could  _ make _ munny, legally," you say, hoping your tone is at least a little bit placating. "I wonder if they've got any sealant over at ITEM. It  _ is _ an item, isn't it?"

"I  _ hate _ Aeris!" Riku bursts out suddenly, swinging his fist through the open air. "None of this is necessary! And she  _ knew! _ She screwed us over  _ knowing _ we'd probably just get eaten by shadow monsters in our sleep!"

"I dunno," you say. "We'd probably do a lot to get out of this, too. I mean, you were  _ already _ bringing up stealing."

"Stealing some sealant, yeah, not stealing the  _ roof _ over somebody's head! Crimes are relative, Sora! The thing you're stealing matters!"

"Okay, okay, calm down," you say, but Riku has no intention of calming down.

"There's only one way out of this mess, Sora," he says.

"We... have to talk to her," you guess hopefully.

"We have to  _ kill Aeris Gainsborough." _

"Or  _ talk _ to her! Jeez, Riku, you wouldn't really kill somebody, right?"

"No," he says bitterly, "but I wish I would. This is your fault, you know. You're a horrible moral influence."

"Yeah, I think I'm fine with that," you say, rolling your eyes. "We should find Aeris and talk to her. Maybe we could all share the hotel room, if we all need it?"

"Are you insane? She  _ robbed _ us! She'd just rob us again! And I  _ hate _ her!"

"We could board up the room down the  _ middle," _ you say, "like, so it becomes two rooms, and we could take one bed and she could take the other one, and then nobody has to look at each other and think about stealing?"

"You can't board a room in half so well it keeps thieves from mugging you in your sleep, Sora.”

“Well, we could, uh… I mean, if we got the sealant, maybe… well, maybe Aeris would be able to think of something we could do!”

“No! We’re not getting Aeris to help solve the logistical problems created by her  _ robbing us! _ We’re just not. We’re not, Sora. I’m not willing.”

“But...”

“And I'm not sharing one bathroom with  _ two _ other people, especially not a girl. She'll spend an hour and a half in the shower every day and try to hide bodies in there or something."

"You were gonna share a raft with me and Kairi, and that didn't even have a bathroom on it," you say, glossing over how none of you even thought about that particular problem, ever.

"That's different," Riku says. "Obviously."

"How's it different?"

"Because Kairi doesn't steal from people at knifepoint!"

"Yeah, but she's a girl, and it seemed like that was a problem for you too, or something."

"This is stupid. I'm not having this conversation. I'm not sharing a hotel room with Aeris Gainsborough, and that's final. I'd rather get murdered by monsters in an abandoned house full of garbage."

"Well, I still think we should talk to Aeris, whatever we do," you say irritably. Riku sighs.

"...Sure," he says. "We'll  _ talk to _ Aeris."

You kinda think he said 'talk to' in a weird way, and maybe it would be better if you just  _ regular _ talked to Aeris, but whatever. You'll have to continue this argument while you try to find the hotel.

* * *

Thirty minutes of argument later, you've found the hotel, and the next thing you know you've both kind of furtively sneaked upstairs to the room that used to be yours.

"Alright," Riku says outside the door. "You've got that broken plank we found, right? You need to look  _ really menacing." _

"I don't wanna fight anybody, though," you say, looking down at the mess of splinters you're holding.

"That's fine, I don't care. If we outnumber her and we both look like credible threats, then she'll have no choice but to talk to us like a human being instead of lunging like a rabid dog. But be ready to fight anyway, it might not be up to us."

Somehow you get the feeling Riku doesn't really mean most of this, and he's hoping for a chance to hit Aeris Gainsborough with the big brick he swiped from that moldy alley down the street next to the canvas tent full of pixies, but his idea would be pretty good if he  _ did _ mean it, so you're just going to have to trust in Aeris's better nature and hope this doesn't get uglier than it already is.

"...Okay," you say, not ready for this at all, "I'm ready." Riku bangs on the door with the hand that doesn't have a brick in it.

_ "Aeris Gainsborough," _ he yells at the cold, unfeeling wood, "Come out here! We just want to talk!"

Maybe twenty seconds of banging later, the door slowly opens...

...And that's definitely not Aeris on the other side.

"Uh," Riku says, struggling to adjust to new information.

There are  _ seven _ people in the room, actually. Two men, two women (one of them old and one of them kinda Mom-aged), a teenage boy who's a little younger than you, and two little kids, a sort of scrappy-looking boy and a soft, probably good-natured girl.

None of them really look like Aeris, but... you guess they look more like Aeris than most people do? They definitely pretty much all have that same black hair, at least.

"What do you want," the old woman says. It doesn't really feel like a question, somehow.

"Uh... we, uh... we work for the hotel, and-"

"No you don't," the Mom-aged woman says. "You're thirteen and you're carrying a brick."

"It's a hotel brick," Riku says, which seems like a pretty strong sign that he's in  _ way _ over his head.

"Look, we don't want any trouble," you say, gesturing peacefully with the hand that you don't have a weapon clutched in. "We're looking for Aeris Gainsborough."

There's a long pause. Then the old woman bursts out laughing. She sounds like a witch who's just put the finishing touches on an evil scheme.

"Oh, yes," she says, "I see. Aeris Gainsborough." And she dissolves back into weird cackles.

"We don't know nothing about any  _ Aeris _ ," one of the men says, glaring at you. "She's got nothing to do with us." He says it with this really specific bitterness that makes it pretty clear they do know something, and she does have something to do with them, but they don't  _ like _ that.

The old woman catches her breath and then doubles over laughing all over again.

"Uh, what's she laughing about?" You scratch the back of your head awkwardly. It's not like you came into this with a great plan, but the situation has already spiraled so far out of control that it's hard to even take it seriously anymore.

"When you're her age, you'll be laughing about things you don't understand too," the other man says.

"Like he said," the Mom-aged woman says. "Whatever that hussie's up to in that fancy little store of hers, it's none of our business."

A little twinkling sound fills the room, and you suddenly realize the teenage boy has been playing a video game on the hotel TV this whole time. You guess that's probably less disturbing than movies from Zootopia.

There's a short silence, and then the little girl suddenly has something to contribute to the conversation.

"My mom says Aeris only lives in a house because I bet she pays her rent with sex stuff if you know what I mean," she pipes cheerfully, and all of the other black-haired people in the room burst out laughing, except for the Mom-aged woman, who looks like somebody just saw her underwear and it wasn't very good underwear.

"Anybody would know what that means," Riku says irritably. "It's not even euphemism, you just said the words. Even he'd know." And he gestures to you, so you guess he's not impressed with how you've been handling yourself in here.

"Uh, I don't... how  _ would _ you pay rent with sex stuff? I mean, it's not like... currency?"

You thought the whole room was laughing before, but no, this is what it looks like when the whole room is laughing.

"Okay, that's enough of that," the Mom-aged woman snaps, and walks over to the closet, throwing the door open and hauling out...

"Whoa, that's a big spear," you say, taking a step back away from the doorway.

"Now get  _ gone, _ you little bastards," she shouts, advancing toward you and waving the spear around dangerously.

You slam the door shut and drag Riku down the hall by his sleeve. You didn't survive monsters today just so you could get perforated by somebody else's mom.

* * *

"Well,  _ that _ could've gone better," Riku says, kicking a crumpled-up can into the distance.

"I dunno, at least nobody got stabbed," you say, but he's totally right. "So... What's next?"

"...We track her down," Riku says. "We ask around. Somebody like her has obviously made big waves in this place. We're clearly not her only enemies."

You're really not sure how comfortable you are with being somebody's enemy.

* * *

As it turns out, there  _ are _ a lot of people who know Aeris Gainsborough, but so far you're really not seeing many of her  _ enemies. _

"Uh, yeah, well... She robbed us, I guess? And that's bad?" You're currently kind of hunkered down on one knee to talk to a cat, which you guess is the kind of thing you're just going to have to get used to.

"Well, now, that doesn't sound the least bit like Aeris. You sure you're not thinking of somebody else?" You're not sure how a cat manages to look suspicious with his weird little triangle head, but he pulls it off, shooting a meaningfully dubious look at the brick Riku still insists on carrying around.

"Positive," Riku says, finally leaning down closer to the cat's level. "That's not the kind of thing you forget."

"Sure, it's just a little difficult picturing that girl of all people pulling one over on somebody. I mean, she's really something, but not in  _ that _ particular way. Soothing, you know? Can't even think of a time there was any meanness in those pretty emerald eyes of hers."

_ "Thomas, _ where've you run off to?" A woman's voice echoes from deeper in the alley, except it's really small, so maybe that's another cat?

"Uh oh. You better hit the road, boys. And maybe think twice about walking around town threatening ladies." He scurries away into the shadows before you can argue.

"...Did Aeris have green eyes?" You ask, straightening back up. Riku shrugs.

"I don't know, Sora, I was paying more attention to the knife."

* * *

"Aeris Gainsborough, hmm? The white mage?" The woman seems like she's staring right through you, which is really unsettling because you're pretty sure she's blind, unless those weird pale white washed-out eyes are just normal for her.

"Maybe? I dunno about that last part."

"And what business do you have with her, pray tell?" She folds her arms across her stomach, leaning up against a brick wall next to her huge fancy staff. Her long cat tail twitches impatiently, because you guess some people are just  _ part _ cat now, too. Sure, why not?

"That's up to her," Riku says a little too menacingly. "She robbed us, for one thing, so getting our stuff back seems like a good place to start."

"Ah, the traditional greeting for travelers in new cities. I suppose in any world, people will still be people." She smiles a little bit sharply, and you're not sure if she's  _ trying _ to be intimidating or if it comes naturally to her. "This strikes me as profoundly out of character, but either way, I'm afraid I won't be of any use."

That's... not really the same as saying she  _ doesn't _ know anything, but you're kinda too nervous to call her on it.

"You're not from here, then?" You're trying your best to keep this moving along before anything gets more tense than it already is, and the less chances you give Riku to open his mouth, the better. "Was your world destroyed too?"

"Gods forfend," she says, which probably means something to people who know more words than you. "Not that I know of. I'm here for..." She pauses, considering. "...Research, I suppose."

"Cool, well, good luck with that," you say. "We'll keep asking around, I guess."

"Best of luck, children," the cat woman says, retrieving her staff and brushing some dust off her cool wizard robes. "Do stay out of trouble."

"We'll see about that," Riku mutters darkly, and you grab him by the sleeve and drag him away before he can get you both turned into frogs or something.

* * *

"Look, if there's something I can help with, I'd be happy to, but for now make it quick, alright? I'm in a hurry right now." The girl smiles tersely, fidgeting with her long layered half-skirt thing.

"Yeah, uh, sure," you say. You're starting to get used to taking the lead in these conversations, somehow, while a brick-carrying Riku lurks nearby like your angry shadow. "We're looking for Aeris Gainsborough."

"Uh huh," she says. "The kind of looking for somebody you do with a brick?" Her eyes narrow. Wait, are they different colors? That seems... familiar, for some reason, but you're not sure why.

"No, I mean - kinda? He's just dumb and mad because she robbed us."

"No, I don't think so. There's some mistake. Aeris hasn't got anything to gain from robbing kids, and she wouldn't, anyway." Well, that's the most directly anybody's shut you down so far. How does someone who mugs people at knifepoint become this well-regarded in  _ any _ community?

"I don't care what you think, I know what happened to me  _ last night," _ Riku cuts in angrily, "And you trusting somebody doesn't change that she had a knife to my friend's throat and now we're homeless!"

"Trust me, I know Aeris Gainsborough a whole lot better than you do. Something's not right here, and I'm sure it needs to get sorted out, but..." She trails off as another siren blares through the town, startling a flock of nearby pigeons, a couple of which are wearing hats. "Damn. Get to shelter, I don't have time for this right now. Sorry."

Well, at least she was nice enough to say sorry afterward? The girl shimmers brightly, and then suddenly she's holding weapons in both hands. They're kind of bulky, mechanical looking things. Are those... guns? Is that what guns look like? You've only heard of those from stories your  _ (dead) _ friends told.

"Uh, good luck or whatever," you say, and for just a second, you think you catch a glimpse of something weird on her face - not an expression, or at least not  _ her _ expression. It almost looks like she's wearing a wooden mask with a big smiling face painted on it. Then it disappears, like it was just a weirdly complicated trick of the light, and she sprints off in the same direction she was going when you stopped her.

"We're right next to ITEM," Riku says. "Let's get in there while there's still time."

"...Yeah," you say, hesitating as you watch the girl who's not wearing a mask disappear into the distance, her guns clutched tight in her hands, her incredibly long braid trailing out behind her.

...Why do you feel so much like you're overlooking something important?

* * *

You make it into ITEM just seconds before a duck in blue shuts and bars the door.

"I... guess we can just look around," you say. "Kill some time?" Riku shrugs, and almost immediately, a duck in red closes in on you and starts trying to sell you stuff. You're barely paying attention, just kind of nodding while the ducks mill around and lead you and Riku to various things you don't need.

It's hard to focus on ducks and stores knowing there are monsters...  _ Heartless _ outside somewhere, and even though that feeling of overlooking something is fading away and is probably just you being weird, it's bothering you a little.

Riku actually remembers to ask if they have any sealant. They don't. The blue duck is going around shuttering the windows from inside, while the green duck hovers in the corner playing paddleball. Maybe you should, like, buy some random weird potion, just to see if it'll do something even weirder.

"Oh wait," you mumble to nobody in particular, "I forgot we're out of munny. Guess that's what happens when you lose your access to free food, huh."

"Oh no! That's not good," the blue duck says; you guess he's done Heartless-proofing the store. "What happened?"

"We got robbed," you say, and you sound as tired as you feel.

"By a bad guy?" The green duck is uncomfortably interested in your bad life.

"A girl named Aeris took all our stuff and now we live in a broken-down shack with monsters all over the place," you explain, even though you're getting pretty sick of having something to explain to literally everybody you talk to.

"What? That's terrible!" The red duck quacks loudly, scandalized. "Maybe she was just  _ pretending _ to be nice."

"That's what she did to  _ us, _ yeah," Riku says, obviously emboldened by somebody  _ not _ immediately trusting thieves more than either of you.

"No way, she wouldn't do that," the blue duck says, but he doesn't sound very sure.

"Maybe she just  _ wants _ you to think she wouldn't do that," the red duck says. The green duck nods, like this is a super deep thing to say.

"Is that why you have a brick?" The green duck is also the only one who noticed Riku's armed. To be fair, you keep forgetting about the brick, too, at least whenever he's not menacing anybody with it.

"Yep," Riku says. "For self-defense." It's not for self-defense, but the ducks all ooh and aah like having a brick is impressive. You suddenly realize you can't tell how  _ old _ these ducks are. They're acting like little kids, and... they sound like little kids, actually, but you haven't really talked to any other ducks to compare them.

"Are you gonna go next door and beat her up?" The red duck asks excitedly.

"No, we're just going to talk to her - wait, she's next door? Seriously?"

"Yeah," the blue duck says, "She works at Cid's!"

"She was really nice when we got all that chocolate in our cash register," the green duck says sadly. "Or at least she pretended to be nice."

"Let's go back to Cid's when the alarm's over, then," you say, but Riku shakes his head.

"We should do it now," he says. "If we can get in there before the sh... before things get bad, she'll be trapped in there with us." That... sure sounds like a recipe for violence.

The blue duck waddles over to the window and opens the shutter, peering out into the street.

"Yeah," the red duck says, "We should go too! To look at the  _ grown-up drama!" _

"Maybe that's not a great idea?" you say, but you're not sure you can argue with Riku  _ and _ three ducks, who are definitely three ducklings if they're looking at you and thinking  _ grown-ups _ . Wait, who let three ducklings run a store? What is wrong with this town?

"Don't follow us," Riku says as the red duck unbars the door. "There might be self-defense."

* * *

You don't see any Heartless outside, but the siren is still going off, so maybe they're just attacking a different part of town. Either way, it doesn't take long to sprint up the stairs to CID'S REPAIRS... and you're actually a little surprised to find that the door isn't locked. You open it, and then you step back.

"Uh... we're... looking for Aeris Gainsborough?" You say to the tall, kind of rugged looking guy who's very deliberately blocking the door.

"Yeah. I heard." He doesn't look happy about it, either. "We need to have ourselves a little talk. Outside." And he sort of pushes you back away from the door before you can argue, stepping out and shutting it behind him.

"Is Aeris in there?" Riku asks, because he has no idea how to manage literally any situation without making people angrier.

"Somehow I don't think that's any of your business," the guy says, and you notice two things, suddenly. First, there's a  _ really _ big sword in his hand, or... maybe a gun with a sword on it? You're not sure what's going on there. And second, you've seen this guy before, walking around town. He was the guy Aeris hustled you away from while you were on her "tour."

His name was... Leon, that's right! You probably wouldn't remember that kind of thing normally, except it's kind of a cool name, and that was such a weird moment that it must've stuck with you.

"Uh, listen, we don't want any trouble," you say, and Riku immediately cuts you off.

"What, are you her bodyguard or something? Does she pay you with all the stuff she steals from innocent people?"

"Riku," you say nervously, "C'mon, man-"

"This is a waste of time," Leon says. "I don't know who you think you're fooling, but no one around here is going to buy into it."

"Well, they  _ should, _ because it's true, dammit," Riku snaps at him, like he's not even worried about the whole sword/gun situation.

"It's not, because that's stupid," Leon says. "Pick a better target next time, how about that?"

"I bet it's true!" Everyone turns as the red duck suddenly pipes up from behind you, his two brothers (or... whatever?) trailing behind him like ducks behind another duck. "You never know who's a scary robber! And I saw in the window once and she's growing  _ huge cannibal plants _ in there, the ones that  _ eat _ people!"

"...You dragged  _ children _ into this little extortion scheme?" For the first time, Leon actually sounds mad, not just annoyed. "During a  _ Heartless attack?" _

"We did not," you say, "They just... hey, it's not  _ extortion. _ Wanting stolen stuff back isn't extortion, you big dumb jerk!"

And then, the ground shakes. The ducks all start quacking in terror, scurrying around to take shelter behind you.

"Oh, that's a big monster," you say, like a dumb person. To be fair to yourself, though, it  _ is _ a big monster.

"Dammit, what is she  _ doing?" _ Leon sounds less annoyed and more worried. He pushes past you, walking up to the edge of the stairs to look at the huge Heartless that's just bounded into the square.

It looks kind of like a big bull, or maybe a boar or something, all plated with weirdly-segmented purplish armor, or maybe it's more like a bug's carapace. Standing on its four legs, it's taller than you are, although not by a lot. Dozens of weird, chaotically-placed spikes jut out from its back, some of them seemingly snapped off part of the way up. Its plating is covered in dings and scrapes and pitted with holes and what might be burn marks, and you really can't tell if someone hurt it or if it was always like that.

"All of you stupid kids get inside," Leon says. "Go hide in the back room and leave this to the professionals."

"But... uh..." You sort of want to offer to help, but actually, it's  _ really big, _ and maybe you'd rather just keep on not dying. That's worked out great for you so far.

"Sora, he's right," Riku says reluctantly. He grabs your arm and pulls you toward the door, yanking it open, and everyone but Leon piles into the repair shop. You don't see Aeris anywhere, but maybe that's for the best, at least in an emergency like this one?

"It's locked!" The blue duck's already gotten to the door in the back of the room, but his little duck hand...wing...things aren't doing him much good against a door that even regular hands probably couldn't handle.

"Goddammit, that's right," Leon says from outside. "Then lock the front door and hide behind the counter. Move it!"

You sprint across the room and slam the door shut, fumbling to lock it, and then also to bolt it once you realize it has one of those too. Then you head back for the counter, your heart pounding. Outside you can hear a loud crack like fireworks going off, and the Heartless roars, a long low warbling sound that makes your teeth ache.

"I don't wanna die, I don't wanna die," the blue duck is quacking, huddled with the other ones behind the counter. The... counter that  _ definitely _ only has room for three ducks, and not three ducks and both of you.

"Behind that couch," Riku says, and the two of you duck and hide behind the little waiting room style couch as best you can, which isn't actually that great. And maybe it's not the best choice, because there's clear line of sight from here out the window, and probably monsters can see through glass, but...

...You can't help but want to watch, anyway.

The bull-boar-thing charges at Leon, and he jumps almost effortlessly over it, dragging his sword across its back as it passes under him. It roars again and you wince hard enough to miss whatever happens next. When you open your eyes, he's kind of running off to its side, ducking out of the way of its big horn-tusks and taking slices out of the armor on its flank.

"Whoa, he's super good," you say, suddenly even more glad that Riku didn't, like, pick a fight with him or anything.

"Pssh. I guess. He's okay," Riku says, and you roll your eyes.

Leon keeps on dodging around expertly, and it seems like it's taking him a lot of work to actually hurt the Heartless much, but it hasn't managed to hit him once yet, and with every weird loud firecracker-sounding hit, more of its armor chips away.

The Heartless screams as Leon's sword bites deep into the side of its face. Itt rears back and roars again, the loudest one yet, so much so that the ground shakes and even Leon's put off balance. Then it charges forward, bowling him over and rushing to make its escape... right toward the repair shop.

"Oh shit," Riku says, and then the front door explodes off its hinges, flying across the room and slamming into the counter. If any of you had been out there instead of taking cover... Well, maybe it's better not to think about it.

The Heartless glances wildly around the room, snorting and pawing at the floor. Its big yellow eyes settle on you for just a second, like it's looking you right in your normal ones.

Then it turns to the ducks.

Leon must be about to follow it in, right? Surely he'll get here fast enough, and nothing bad will happen? He seems... pretty cool...

_ (bodies in the street fires in the dark a heap of dead friends sunk beneath the dark water) _

...No, you can't take that chance. You just can't. They're not even just ducks, they're  _ ducklings. _ That's just too much. You barely have time to realize the key's back in your hand before you leap out from your cover.

"Sora, don't!" Riku grabs for you, but you're already too far gone. You rush the bull-boar without giving yourself time to reconsider, and it's so focused on the ducks that it doesn't even try to stop you from ramming the key _ (blade) _ clear through the armor on its side, burying it in the Heartless's weird shadow meat all the way up to its guard.

The Heartless roars again, thrashing wildly, and the force of it yanks the key back out of its body and sends you tumbling across the room to smack into the wall. You look up, dazed, as it turns furiously back toward you.

Then Leon leaps in through the busted doorway, rising high enough to almost crack his head against the ceiling, and he descends onto its back with his sword clutched in both hands, that firework sound echoing off the walls as he drives the blade down through the top of its head and all the way out the bottom of its jaw.

Finally, the Heartless slumps against the floor. The windows rattle in their frames from the weight of its collapse, and Leon rolls off to the side, breathing hard.

* * *

You watch in a stunned daze as Leon leads the shell-shocked ducklings out of CID'S REPAIRS, shooing them back to ITEM. The siren's already turned off; maybe it's activated automatically? Are there sensors for Heartless? Riku sticks close to you the whole time, like if he lets you out of arm's reach you'll get trampled by a bull or something.

When you finally exit the store again, Leon is waiting for you.

"...Never thought I'd see a keyblade with my own eyes," he says. "Why in the hell would one of those things choose a punk kid like you?"

"A... keyblade," you say. You've never heard that word before (right?), but it feels... right, somehow. Almost... obvious. "What is this thing, really?"

"A weapon of light," Leon says. "The ultimate weapon against the Heartless, or so they say. I had thought there probably weren't any of them left in this world. Shows what I know. And now, one's turned up right here in Traverse Town."

"Light, huh," Riku mutters to nobody in particular.

"Listen, kid. It's not too late for you to turn this thing around, but right now you've really only got three choices. First, you can take that thing and join the fight. Second, you can waste the greatest hope we'll probably see in our lifetimes. Third... you can pass it on to somebody else."

You can? You're not so sure about 'joining the fight,' and you don't want to waste something important, but...

"Oh really. Let me take a wild guess. You mean pass it on to somebody like  _ you," _ Riku says. His voice is low and dangerous.

"...I can't say I'd turn it down," Leon says, "But I can think of at least one better candidate. It's not your responsibility to join anybody's war, kid. You're in a rough spot, right? Your world's gone, your whole universe is upside down, and nobody  _ asked _ you to inherit some ancient artifact. But there's still a way to do something good, here."

"Sora," Riku says. "Don't make any rash decisions."

"Uh," you say. You're starting to feel pretty overwhelmed.

"That weapon could do a lot to keep this town safe, and that's just for starters. With a tool like that, maybe we could finally push  _ back. _ You'd be a hero just for that much. We can find you a place to live, make sure you've got food and water. No more struggling to get by."

This feels... wrong, somehow... but is it, really? You're not exactly prepared to go be the  _ fighting _ kind of hero - you weren't even sure if you wanted a sword job, let alone, like, a  _ special _ sword job. But... being  _ some _ kind of hero doesn't sound bad, and you sure would like to know for sure that you'll never have to squat in a freezing cold garbage house again.

"Would you make sure Riku had somewhere to stay, too?" you ask, glancing in his direction. Riku shakes his head, looking extremely on edge, even by Riku-standards.

"Sure, why not," Leon says. "That could be arranged."

"Like hell," Riku says. "Sora, come on, be smart about this."

Something inside you is screaming not to do this, not to take the deal, but... it's not like you're exactly known for making super good choices when you follow your heart, or even just in general.

"...I have another friend who got lost when our world... disappeared," you say, finally. "If I gave away this keyblade, could you promise me you'd look for her?"

But before Leon can answer, Riku hurls a basket of flowers into his face.

...You don't even know where he  _ got _ that.

"Screw that! He's using you, Sora! He wouldn't be offering so much for that weapon if it wasn't what it was  _ worth! _ Don't be impulsive!" 'Don't be impulsive' is pretty rich coming from Riku of all people, but you guess he has a point, too.

"But... Riku. Kairi... she's..."

"We'll look for Kairi together," he says. "At least we know you and I will actually go through with it."

...Yeah. Yeah, he's right. How could you just entrust finding Kairi to some guy you don't even know, whether or not he's good with a swordgun? And besides... this keyblade just feels right in your hands, somehow. More right than maybe anything else ever has. Are you really going to throw that away just because you're  _ scared? _

"...No," you say. "No, Riku's right. Don't ever try to manipulate me, you jerk. I'll fight the darkness on my own! I've been doing that already!"

"Come  _ on, _ kid," Leon groans. "Take this seriously. Make the smart decision, here. Don't throw your..." But then he trails off, and his eyes suddenly harden. "Actually... to hell with that. This is a waste of time."

Slowly, he raises his sword into some kind of fighting stance.

"Uh," you say, taking a step back.

"If I understood the stories right," Leon says, maybe to you and maybe to himself, "Sometimes defeating a keyblade wielder can prove you have the better claim to it. And maybe I'm not the best choice - not even  _ my _ first choice - but you know what? Better me than some snot-nosed punk who doesn't know his ass from a hole in the ground!"

"Hey, that's not... necessary," you say falteringly. "Nobody has to fight over this."

"You have no idea what  _ 'necessary' _ means," Leon says, and lunges forward with his swordgun at the ready.

* * *

This is completely stupid, and you might be the maddest about it that you've been about anything in a long, long while. You  _ know _ you're panicking and screwing all of this up, okay? You're not stupid. You just... have no idea what you could do to  _ not _ screw this up.

Sure, you probably could have avoided pissing this guy off, but if he was just going to attack you if he didn't get his way regardless, then what would the point of playing nice even have been? What could you have possibly done to avoid this situation?

You guess it doesn't matter anymore anyway, because the guy with the gunblade is charging at Sora, and it is  _ past time _ for self-defense.

"Hey, c'mon, don't," Sora splutters, narrowly blocking an upward slash with the keyblade. The guy doesn't let up, though, just rains blow after blow on Sora, who's scrambling backward and losing ground with every desperate parry.

...It's a good thing you and Sora spent so much time dueling each other, but somehow you don't think that's going to cut it against somebody whose job might be killing real monsters. You have to get involved somehow, before this gets even uglier.

You wait for a second, until the guy is really pressing his advantage, getting overconfident, and then you leap for him from behind, tossing your brick aside and trying to grab him and hold him still so Sora can hit him or something. The guy curses at you and hurls you off him almost instantly, sending you rolling painfully across the cobblestones.

"Riku!" Sora lowers his guard for a second, watching you with a horrified look on his face, and the guy belts him in the side of the head with the flat of his gunblade, knocking Sora off his feet. Damn. Dammit, you're just making this worse!

What else can you do? The brick is still on the ground nearby. You scoop it up as you struggle back to your feet and hurl it at the back of the guy's head, but he dodges out of the way as if he heard it coming or something. It barely even slows his onslaught, and you don't think Sora can keep this up much longer.

...You didn't want to do this to a  _ person, _ but you're running out of options. You let the anger flare up inside you and cast the spell the old hag taught you, launching a baseball-sized streak of black fire at the guy... and he just whips the gunblade around and bats it out of the air like it's nothing to him.

There has to be a way you can help. This is insane. Have you ever felt this helpless before in your life? This isn't really you, is it? It can't be. You're supposed to be able to protect the things that matter - protect  _ him. _ You're supposed to be a  _ hero. _ How are you ever going to face the man you met on the beach all those years ago if you can't stand up now and do what has to be done?

You think back, for some reason, to a cluster of uncomfortable moments growing up on the islands. You remember setting things on fire by mistake, once or twice, when you were angry. You remember the world getting just a little darker around you, if you wanted it to. You remember being excited, because hey, maybe you had potential as a magic user!

And you remember how frustrated and pathetic you felt when you were shot down, time and time again, by grown-ups and older kids who were nervous around any magic that was different from theirs.

What if you had been able to work on that? What if even one person had been encouraging, or even just  _ not discouraging? _ Could a mage do something about this? Could a version of you who got to make better choices fix this problem somehow?

The tension running through you is mounting by the second, anger and fear and frustration and bitterness and impotence rising like the glow on the horizon just before morning.

And then all of that anger, all of that darkness  _ surges _ outward, and a cold searing pain burns its way from your chest all the way down your arm and into your fingertips... and in a burst of black not-light, something materializes in your hand.

"...What the hell is this," you say, clutching your arm, but the pain's already fading. All that's left is the sword in your hand - red and purple and black, curved wickedly almost like a bat's wing, with a baleful blue eye glaring out from the hilt.

...Well, it sure as hell isn't a keyblade, but you know what? You'll take it.

There's no time to overthink this. You have to act. So you tighten your grip on this new weapon and enter the fray.

The guy with the gunblade sees you coming, like he's seen everything coming, but he clearly didn't expect you to generate a sword out of nothing. He drops everything to block your lunging strike, and Sora shows some initiative for once in his life and presses the attack, finally landing a glancing blow that tears a line through the guy's sleeve.

And after that, he's off balance, overwhelmed by the sudden shift from a fight he was easily winning to a fight he had to try in, and... you realize...

...You could just stab him.

You'd almost swear time is slowing down.

No, wait, you can't just stab a guy, right? That's messed up. But he attacked  _ you! _ He was the first person to swing a sword around here, and for all you know this fight could end with your best friend dead just as your new life is supposed to begin. You can't let that happen. That's the one thing that's  _ not _ an option.

You don't want to do this... but if you have to do this for Sora, then goddammit, you'll do it.

Maybe there's a part of you that wants to do it. If you can just... pretend this guy is everyone who's ever hurt you, then maybe... maybe... oh god, you're going to be sick. But you have to. You  _ have  _ to.

...You have to.

You raise your sword, and then, suddenly, there's a loud  _ crack  _ and your arm wrenches back painfully. It takes you a moment to realize what the hell just happened.

Somebody just  _ shot your sword. _

"Okay, I have no idea what's going on here," the girl from earlier with the half-skirt and the pistols says, breathing hard, smoke wisping up from one barrel, "But you could've killed him just then, you know that?"

"So what?! He attacked us!" But now that she's said it, it's become even more real than it already was, and you feel like if you let yourself waver for a single instant you'll throw up. Off to your side, the guy with the gunblade's recovered, and he's back to dominating his fight with Sora.

"Alright, well, like I said," she says, keeping the guns pointed in your direction, "I didn't see what happened, and nobody ever said Leon makes good decisions, but either way I am not about to let anybody die here today, especially not anybody I know. Okay? Just... put down the sword. There's still time to talk this out."

"Talk this  _ out?" _ , you say incredulously. "He's still swinging that gunblade  _ right now! _ Like hell I'm going to  _ talk this out! _ You people have to do it first!"

"Look, he can be a little stupid sometimes, but it isn't like he's going to kill anybody," she says.

"Why would I believe that? Go to hell!" You take a step forward, raising your sword. Another crack echoes through the courtyard and you flinch as a bullet whizzes past your head.

"Last chance to back down before things get rough," she says.

You were the best swordfighter on the island. You'd beat Sora almost all of the time, and Tidus most of the time. But... you have no idea how much good that'll do against somebody with a gun.

Somewhere over your shoulder, you hear Sora cry out in pain. You grit your teeth.

...She might have guns, but  _ all _ she has is guns. At close range, she'll probably be defenseless. If you were willing to kill someone for Sora, then of course you can fight someone for him. That shouldn't even be hard.

You launch yourself forward, sword at the ready, trying to zigzag enough to avoid getting shot while still shortening the distance between you and her. She fires at least half a dozen shots, but none of them even come close. Maybe she's not nearly as prepared to kill somebody as she sounded.

As you close in, you realize you're going to have to decide whether you're going for the kill again or not. You... should, right? Or shouldn't you? She shot at you with  _ guns, _ but still, the idea of plunging a sword into a girl's body is kind of hard to choke down. Maybe you can just... stun her somehow?

Just as you make it into melee range, ready to try to hit her in the temple with the flat of your sword, something happens.

The girl with the guns flashes bright white, suddenly, like a strobe light, and the air around her wavers like heat haze, little white sparks and bubbles of light scattering everywhere, and when the light fades and you can see her again, everything is different.

Her whole outfit has  _ changed, _ somehow. The half-skirt is gone, and everything's been replaced with dark leather and red accents, sharp and padded like light armor. You're so confused by this that it takes you a second to notice the more important difference.

The guns are gone, and now she's holding a sword. A  _ weird _ sword, thick and blue and hooked at the end, shimmering like water.

She brings it up in an instant, easily blocking your swing, and immediately counters with a hit of her own. You manage to parry it somehow, but the force of the blow is  _ way _ beyond anything you expected, ringing all the way up your arm and into your shoulder. You would never in your life have guessed she'd be this strong. You're not even sure if it makes sense.

"Stand down!", she yells, and follows up with another shattering blow that you manage to deflect a little less painfully, and then another one, and then another one, and you stagger back from the weight of every hit, losing enough ground that you actually kind of pass by Sora, whose fight has somehow gotten him turned around so the ground  _ he's _ losing is moving him away toward the direction you just came from.

This really isn't going great for either of you, is it.

You can tell Sora's getting tired, battered by this jackass and his incredibly cool sword at every turn. Hell,  _ you're _ getting tired, and you've only had to block about six hits so far. The girl just keeps on you, though, not giving you a second to strategize, let alone any chances to help Sora.

She catches your eye as you stumble over a stray cobblestone and smirks. If you could hit someone that hard, you'd probably be smug about it too, but it still really pisses you off... and then you have a brilliant idea.

She's confident because she's controlling the fight, right? That's how confidence works, and that's how people get into these savage strings of attacks, keeping up the pressure. Control the flow of battle and you control everything.

And what's the best way to take control for yourself? By doing something unexpected.

This move only works on Sora about half the time nowadays, because you've beaten him with it so many times that he's actually begun to develop the ability to learn, but you've never fought this girl before in your life.

...Of course, you can't really use it unless you take a  _ hit, _ and that's not so scary when it's Sora or Tidus with a wooden sword, but it's  _ really intimidating _ when it's this freakishly strong woman with whatever the hell  _ her _ sword is. If that's what it takes to win, though, then so be it.

You take the fall, figuratively at first - coincidentally fumbling a parry enough that she's able to follow up by smacking you outrageously hard with the back of her sword - and then literally, rolling with the force of it and falling flat on your back. Your head cracks against the cobblestones, and you pretend it hurt you a lot worse than it did, which is not hard considering it actually does hurt pretty damn bad.

The girl approaches slowly, almost gingerly. Hopefully you tripped whatever shred of compassion is still alive in her brain somewhere, and she feels bad about kicking your ass, but you can't discount the possibility that she knows you're up to something, either.

...But it doesn't actually matter, because regardless of that, she finally comes within range, and you roll yourself back and then spring forward feet first to kick her in the stomach with both legs. Nobody who falls for this one gets up afterward, not even her.

Except just as you launch yourself up, she flashes with light again, and abruptly she's dressed in a long elaborate white robe, her sword replaced with a complicated blue and yellow staff. One of her hands immediately detaches from the staff and whips out in front of her, and a shining shield of transparent bluish hexagons flickers to life in front of her. Your shoes connect with it and it's like kicking a brick wall.

You sort of manage to vault back away using her spell, getting back a little distance, but that was basically the best idea you had for this, and there's no chance you'll lure her in the same way twice.

She glares at you. You glare at her.

Then you turn to her friend who's still fighting Sora, because screw this, maybe you can at least make a difference over there before she beats you to a pulp. You're preparing to charge, but she quickly puts herself in between you and the other fight that's still raging.

"Nope," she says. "Not happening. That's a really bad idea. Back off."

You have to think fast, to come up with something better. Whenever she does... whatever this clothes-changing thing is, her weapon and her strengths seem to change, right? So what if her weaknesses change, too? If she has to switch into this healer kind of mode to make a shield like that, does that mean she has to change into the one with the sword in order to hit hard? That she needs the guns out to keep her reflexes sharp?

Slowly but surely, you lower your sword. Then you shrug, letting yourself look as exhausted as you feel.

"...No," you say. "You know what? I'm done. This is stupid. I can't win this, can I?"

You begin to walk toward her, kind of gesturing non-threateningly with your free hand. She relaxes just a little bit, unless that's just wishful thinking, which it might be.

"Not a chance," she says. "Sorry, but that's just how it is."

"Fine, fine," you say. "I know when I'm beaten. You're right, this doesn't have to stay ugly. Maybe we should just-" and mid-sentence, without missing a beat, you lunge forward with all the speed you can muster, bringing your sword in for a stab. There's no time to worry about whether it could kill her or not. The time for mercy is long gone.

She looks genuinely surprised, which almost surprises  _ you. _ While it's possible that she's not so much surprised that you pulled this on her as she is surprised by your timing, that'll work just as well for you.

Yeah, you realize as she flashes bright again just before your sword would've made contact, she  _ is _ slower now. Unfortunately, she's still faster than you are, and now the heavy robes are gone, replaced by... uh, wow, some kind of red and white bikini thing, you guess, with a flowery blue-white miniskirt and a pair of nasty-looking silvery blue daggers, and she flickers away from your thrust so fast you nearly lose track of her.

The girl bursts off to your side like a rocket, and it's all you can do to turn your head quickly enough to  _ sort of _ keep up with her as she circles around you, and then even that's not enough anymore. A second after you lose track of her you see another burst of light out of the corner of your eye, and then something cold and wet slams into your back like a wave during a storm, soaking through your shirt and knocking you clear off your feet.

You slam into the ground face-first and struggle to push yourself up again, dizzily watching yet another white flash as it's reflected in the water freshly pooled on the street underneath you... and then her body slams into you from above, flattening you against the cobblestones again, and you can feel cold metal press against the back of your neck as her knees dig into your upper back.

"And that's the match," she says, a little bit viciously. "Nice try, kid." Between her body on top of you and the back of her sword pressing you down, you're pinned pretty thoroughly.

Somewhere nearby, Sora cries out in pain again. You're actually starting to be impressed by how long he's lasted, although maybe the girl is just better than the guy, or maybe she's just putting in more effort. Either way, you don't have time to be incapacitated.

"Stay  _ down _ already," she hisses as you struggle and thrash around. You wriggle furiously until one of your arms is halfway free. Then you close your eyes tight, let your anger surge, and force a puff of dark fire down into the puddle of water. A wave of steam washes over your face; the girl yells out in surprise, the pressure from her sword finally lets up a little, and you jerk your head up as hard as you can and slam it into her face, rolling out from under her when she curses and recoils.

You spring to your feet as fast as you can... and by the time you're standing she's already changed her outfit again. This time she's wearing some kind of weird sexy witch costume, and she brandishes a totally different staff at you, releasing a jet of cold water that slams into your stomach like a sack of bricks and knocks you back onto your ass all over again.

"Well, this isn't exactly what I was expecting," a completely different girl says. "Seems kind of bad, actually." You and the girl you're fighting both whip your heads around to look, and you see... huh, isn't that the girl in pink who was working at the repair shop yesterday? The one who gave you and Sora your voucher kits? And there's the old man, standing next to her where they both must've just rounded the corner onto this street.

"Goddammit," the old man says, shaking his head. "I ain't got time for this shit."

_ "Alright, that's enough," _ the girl shouts. She grips her big staff in both hands and extends it toward the courtyard in general. "All of you...  ** _STOP._ ** _ " _

And, very unexpectedly, that's exactly what all four of you do.

* * *

One second, you were fighting Leon while Riku got super beaten up by a really scary girl, and then the  _ nice _ girl from yesterday showed up, and now everybody's just kinda...

...Frozen?

Leon's suspended there in mid-swing, his sword hanging in the air, while you kind of hover balance in the middle of a bad fall. Riku and the other girl are stuck awkwardly facing off while they both look at somebody else.

And... you can't move. Not even a little. Or, wait, actually maybe you can? If you try  _ really _ hard, you think maybe, just maybe, you're moving a little bit, but it's like... a movie playing at 1/500th speed or something.

"Huh," the girl in pink says. "I guess everybody's got some magic resistance these days. Maybe I should've stepped it up a notch..."

"Eh," the old man grumbles, "Let 'em thrash around. They all got it coming."

"Okay people, listen up," the girl says, leaning on her staff. "I'm going to un-stop you one by one and hear your stories, without anybody else having a chance to pollute them. And you'd all better hope your explanations are good!"

She looks from person to person, then sighs and walks over to you, shaking her head disappointedly. She waves her staff and all of a sudden you come unstuck in time and flop back onto your butt.

"So. What's your story?"

"Uh..." You have no idea where to start. This is about the fight with Leon, right? "Well, first he saved a bunch of kids," you say, gesturing at Leon, "So that was pretty cool actually, but then he accused us of extortioning and tried to beat us up and steal my keyblade! We didn't have any choice but to fight back!"

"Kids these days," the old man says bitterly. "Always up to no damn good. Today it's extortion, but what'll it be tomorrow? Kidnapping? Terrorism? Sex murders?"

"Wha... no! That's-" But the girl in pink waves her staff and you fall silent as everything freezes up again.

"Alrighty, who's up next," the girl mutters, chewing on her lip. Then she walks slowly over to Leon and frees him from her magic. His sword, suddenly moving again, flashes out through the empty air where you used to be, and he stumbles and almost falls over. "Okay, Leon. Explain yourself."

"First of all," Leon says indignantly, "They were absolutely  _ 'extortioning.' _ You think kids like that deserve a keyblade more than this town does? What are they gonna do with it, huh? Beat up beloved community figures? Yeah, I don't think-" And she freezes him again mid-sentence.

"Well, that was as disappointing as I thought it would be," the girl says, shaking her head again. "Leon, I'd like to say I expect better from you, but maybe I should just adjust my expectations."

"Once a thug, always a thug, eh," the old man says, spitting on the ground for some reason.

"Okay, next stop, Mr. Vampire Sword." She takes her time getting to Riku, like maybe she's kind of enjoying watching everybody struggle, or maybe like she resents everybody wasting her time, which, you know, does seem fair. "Spill it." Riku unfreezes and shoots her a sullen glare.

"We weren't trying to extort anyone," he says. "We were  _ robbed, _ and we wanted our stuff back, like anybody would. Then  _ this _ jackass tried to extort  _ Sora, _ so I threw some flowers at him, and then he tried to beat Sora up, and then Miss Fashion Show here tried to beat  _ me _ up, and here we are." You... guess that does kind of cover it. The girl in pink looks around at the scattered flowers, noticing them for the first time.

"I hope you realize that was a thousand munny worth of flowers," she says. "Those aren't exactly easy to come by in Traverse Town."

"Well, I have  _ three _ munny," Riku says defiantly.

"Guess that means your snotty little hobo ass is fixing the door," the old man says. The girl in pink freezes Riku again before he can fire back.

"Okay, last one," she mumbles a little exhaustedly, and turns to unfreeze the girl who kept changing her clothes.  _ "Please _ give me something that makes this even a little bit less stupid."

"Well, I didn't see everything," the clothes girl says, flashing with light and settling back on the half-skirt outfit you first met her in. "When I got here, these boys were all already brawling. I'd believe that Leon didn't handle the situation very well, but the kid with the bat wing sword was about to stab him, so I made sure he didn't."

"That could be worse," the girl in pink says. "Keep it coming."

"I think it's worth mentioning that I ran into those kids half an hour ago. They were wandering around town with improvised weapons and claiming you  _ robbed _ them, so yeah, I agree that we really need to get to the bottom of what's going on, because, well... that's stupid?"

Wait, what? What does she mean, you said  _ this girl _ robbed you? Aeris is the one who robbed you! You never even heard the girl in pink's name! You really need to be able to say something, but it's not working thanks to the magic. You do your best anyway, and end up very very slowly writhing around, making horrible moaning sounds like somebody trying to scream for help in a dream.

"Oh, he  _ is _ making whale noises now," the girl in pink says. "Okay, I think it's discussion time." She taps her staff on the cobblestones, and the magic unravels all at once, setting the four of you free at last.

"Nobody ever said anything about  _ you _ robbing us, that's crazy," you say. " _ Aeris _ is the one who robbed us."

"Uh, yeah, that's my name alright," the girl in pink says. You blink, then shake your head.

"No, no, Aeris  _ Gainsborough," _ you explain, kind of surprised there are two people with a name like that in one place.

"The one and only," the girl in pink says. "I...  _ oh. _ Oh, damn it. Okay. Yeah. I see what's happening here." She sighs and rubs at her temple with the arm she isn't using to lean on her staff.

"Shoulda goddamn figured," the old man says, and spits on the ground a second time. "Any time somebody 'round these parts is cryin' about being  _ robbed, _ there's one place to check out first."

"...She  _ is _ a criminal," Leon says. "I mean, wouldn't you be more surprised to hear she  _ wasn't _ robbing anyone?"

"I thought she was still going by Celes Chere," the clothes-changing girl says irritably.

"No, Celes finally threatened to run her through," says the girl who you should probably accept is the real Aeris Gainsborough. She turns to you and Riku and sighs. "Her real name is Yuffie Kisaragi, and as you might be able to tell, she's kind of a local problem."

"Doesn't have to be," the old man says. "Maybe it's about time somebody solved her."

"How about for now we solve  _ this _ problem, Cid," Aeris says. "Okay, kids. Come inside with us and let's figure this out."

"What, uh... what about us?" The clothes-changing girl says awkwardly. "We should probably be assessing the damage to the town."

"Sure, you do that, Yuna. Maybe smack Leon upside the head for me once or twice while you're at it." The girl... Yuna, you guess, nods, and Leon takes a step back, visibly alarmed.

"We'll call for you if anyone needs healing," Leon says, and leaves to go 'assess the damage' suspiciously quickly.

You guess... the fight's over, huh?

Just as you think that, as if on cue, the keyblade vanishes from your hands.

"Hey Riku," you ask suddenly, "Where did you get that cool sword?"

"I... don't know," he says, staring down at it. "Magic, I guess. Didn't really do it on purpose. Wait, how do I get rid of this thing?  _ Do _ I get rid of... oh." The sword dissolves into little motes of dark that flutter away. "Never mind."

"Okay, come on," Aeris says. "Follow me."

She walks slowly around CID'S REPAIRS while the two of you trail behind her. Cid himself seems to have disappeared; maybe he got tired of young people arguing and went on ahead.

"Sora," Riku says. "I... uh... I know I screwed things up back there." You guess that's his way of kinda-sorta apologizing, maybe. "Don't agree to anything before you can think about it, alright?"

"Your friend is right," Aeris says. "Leon had no business trying to rush you like that. I'm not going to try to influence you one way or another, okay? It's none of my business. Just be happy you've got somebody who's willing to stand up for you, even if he is a little bit dumb." Riku looks away awkwardly.

You follow Aeris up some stairs to the second floor of the shop, which seems to only be accessible from outside, and when you reach the top and she opens the door, Cid is there blocking the way.

"Alright, punk," he says, narrowing his eyes at Riku. "Got my tools. Time for you to pay for those flowers."

* * *

Now you're in the kitchen, and by 'you' you mean you and Aeris, because Riku and Cid are busy yelling and hitting things with hammers downstairs. Nobody's making you help cook, but Cid was pretty adamant that no one was allowed to help Riku with the door, and it would be weird to just stand around watching him suffer, and it would also be weird to just sit on the couch alone and stare at the decorations and wonder if your aunt would like them, and you kinda wanted to ask her some questions anyway.

Aeris gives you some carrots to chop, which you get busy trying to do, although you're not super great at any this. Meanwhile, she's removing some weird eggs from her fridge and gathering up various little bottles of spices.

"So... the girl who robbed us and said she was you. Yuffie, I guess," you say. Aeris sighs. You're starting to think maybe people give Aeris a lot of reasons to sigh.

"That's her," Aeris says. "When Leon and Yuna get back, we'll work on finding you some place to stay, alright?"

"Uh, thanks, but that's not what I meant. I was trying to ask if you were, like... friends? With her?" It sounds like she knows her, is all, and you're not sure what else would explain someone sounding this tolerant of a mugger.

"...I don't know if I'd go that far," Aeris says. "But it's important for someone to keep an eye on her. See, we didn't really know each other back then, but we're from the same world."

"So, she tried to rob you too," you joke, except Aeris doesn't laugh, she just nods tiredly.

"That _is_ actually correct. She tried to rob me and my friends a few times, even. But... Yuffie came from a part of our world where... well, the politics are a bit convoluted, but the point is that she wants to help her people."

"To... help her people?'

"The more I've gotten to know Yuffie, the more I think she'd be basically the same person even if life hadn't given her a reason to do the things she does... but that doesn't change that from her own perspective, she's usually trying to do something she considers good."

You think back, suddenly, to all those black-haired people in your hotel room.

"There were... other people in our hotel room, when we got back there. I think they might have been a family," you say. Aeris nods again.

"A lot of people from our world made it here, most of them from Wutai. That's where Yuffie was from. And... it  _ was _ wonderful that so many of us made it through, but... it was hundreds of people at once, and the way they do things in this town is set up to deal with a trickle at a time. That many refugees all at once was unprecedented. It still is, actually."

"Oh... yeah, I guess that would be complicated."

"We know what to do if it ever happens again... not that it'll be easy... but at the time no one was prepared at all. A lot of people fell through the cracks, and this is not a good place to fall through the cracks."

"Oh," you say. You're really not sure what to make of this situation, honestly. You do want that room back, but would that mean taking it away from that whole family? But then, if you  _ don't _ take it away from that family, wouldn't that mean you were taking it away from Riku?

"I think Yuffie is angry that the charity programs aren't doing more to help," Aeris says, cracking a couple of eggs with machine-like efficiency, "And I agree with her, but it's seriously clouding her judgment. I keep telling her that robbing one really rich person would get her further than robbing ten refugees  _ and _ not ruin anyone's life, but what are you gonna do?"

You stare at her for a second, processing that, and she giggles.

"Can I tell you a secret, Sora? I don't really know how to be a good person, either." She puts a finger to her lips and winks, then goes back to mixing unfamiliar spices into the eggs. You really weren't expecting that, but...

"I guess it was pretty obvious I was thinking about that stuff," you say a little sheepishly.

"I think most people spend a lot of time thinking about that stuff," Aeris says, beating the eggs with something that doesn't quite look like an actual egg-beater.

"...Do you think I should give up the keyblade?", you ask. Aeris pauses in her egg-beating for a second and looks at you, her expression carefully neutral.

"Why?", she asks back.

"I dunno," you say, still struggling with some of the carrots. "At first I was really excited, you know? I didn't want to give it up, so I was really happy when Riku talked me out of it... but now I'm wondering if maybe I should."

"So, you want to know what I think?" Aeris sets down another big deep bowl, butters it thoroughly on the inside with something that looks like a regular stick of butter except pale green, and then pours the beaten eggs into it for some reason.

"Yeah, I guess so."

"I think that good things coming your way are rare enough, so you shouldn't feel like you're not allowed to keep them," she says, sloshing the eggs carefully around the bowl.

"What do you mean?" You're trying to understand both her point and the eggs at the same time, and something's gotta give.

"Imagine you're walking around one day, and you find a winning lottery ticket in the rubble of a plane crash. Would it actually help any of the people who died if you ripped it up, or would it be better to spend some on you and spend some on charity?"

"...I don't know," you say slowly. "I don't think it's exactly the same thing. Or maybe I just don't get it. Planes are... a vehicle, right?"

"Yeah, they're a vehicle that flies... and you're right, maybe that isn't quite it. But I still think you should get to be happy." The egg mixture inside seems to be starting to spread out thin and cling to the inner contours of the bowl. Aeris smooths it out a little with a big wooden spoon until it's all coated evenly. "I think people have to try to be good, but I don't think we have to try to be  _ perfect." _

"I guess not," you say. When she puts it that way, yeah, maybe it's obvious, but...

"I donate to the relief, but if I lived like an ascetic I'm sure I could give more. But I don't, because I don't want to. And I don't really think there's anything wrong with trying to cling to the things you're lucky enough to have in this life." Aeris works a thin spatula in under the edge of the egg-layer of the bowl and starts peeling off the whole inner coating as one big piece.

"Yeah, but... what if somebody else could do more with the keyblade?"

"What if they couldn't?", she counters, carefully setting the weird circle of bendy egg-stuff on a powdered baking tray and fishing out a small knife. "What if it chose you for a reason? There's plenty we don't know about the keyblades, but they're a whole lot older than we are. Maybe they know things we don't."

You're not sure if you like the sound of that, though. Sometimes you think it's not great having  _ grown-ups _ plan things out for you without explaining why, especially when you think about Riku's mom, and this would be like, a whole step above  _ that. _

Aeris starts cutting the egg circle into four equal-sized slices, and you startle a bit and look down at the knife in your hand and the roughly-a-third of your carrots you haven't even finished chopping, trying to speed it up a little. You get through another whole carrot before pushing yourself too hard and cutting your finger.

"Ow, ow," you say, dropping the knife onto the counter. Well, at least you're not Kairi, right? You saw her do the same thing once, and gross red stuff got everywhere, but for you it just stings.

Aeris sets down her knife and quickly grabs your hand, pulsing a pale light into the wound, and the pain fades immediately.

"That's probably enough carrots," she says, letting you go to scoop up the vegetables you've already chopped and ferry them closer to her egg thing. "You know, I think the real problem here is that you have no idea if this will make you happy or not."

"...Huh, you think?" She's not wrong, at least. Do you want a sword job? Do you not want one?

"Well, you don't really know if you can handle fighting the Heartless, right? It's so outside of your experience. If I were you, I'd spend a couple days following Yuna and Leon around. Help them out. See how it feels."

She cuts the quarters of the circle into three smaller wedges each, then drizzles some kind of savory-looking red sauce on top of one slice, stacks a second one on top, drizzles an orange sauce onto the next and stacks the third one on, drizzles yellow sauce onto that, and then sprinkles little slices of carrot on top, before moving on to the next set of slices.

"...Yeah," you say. "Yeah, that actually sounds pretty good." You'd be a little safer, too, right? You could probably learn how to do all of this  _ without _ having, like, a ninety percent chance of dying in the process. "I could at least ask them about it."

"By the way, don't let Leon push you around again. He's generally a good guy, so I don't think he'll try it, but if he does then he'll have to answer to me." She rearranges the stacked-up slices of egg and sauce and carrot on the baking tray

"...Hey," you say, suddenly wondering something. "What about you? Do you, uh... want the keyblade yourself?" Aeris makes a weird face for a second, but then she shakes her head.

"No," Aeris says finally. "I wouldn't be a good candidate. I can do my thing well enough without one, and I'm... well, let's just say I'm more of a homebody than I used to be." She picks up the baking tray and hefts it off the counter. "Alright, into the oven you go."

You... guess that makes sense, even if you kinda suspect you're missing something. Aeris slides the tray into the oven, shuts it, and fiddles with a couple of dials even though it seems like it was already pre-heated.

"Well, I'm going to go see if Cid's done torturing your poor friend. Hey, do you want me to ask Leon and Yuna about all of that, or should I leave it to you?"

"Oh. Yeah, actually, that would be cool. I'm not really sure how to talk to him after the whole fight thing? Like, I'm not really  _ mad, _ but it's gonna be super awkward."

"Sure thing," she says. She picks her staff up from the kitchen wall where it was leaning and heads for the door to the living room, waving as she goes.

You're not sure what to do with yourself now, so you just noodle around in the kitchen for a while. You take a look through her recipe book, which turns out to be hand-written, but you can't find the weird food she was making in there anywhere. Then you take a minute to see what recipes you had back on Destiny Islands, and what things you definitely didn't. It's about a third of the first, and two-thirds of the other.

A couple minutes later, you hear footsteps on the stairs outside. You wander into the living room just as the door opens and Riku walks in. He immediately plops down onto the couch, looking real tired and kind of aimlessly angry.

"Thank God for Aeris," he says. "She distracted him long enough for me to sneak away. I think it might even have been on purpose." He wipes a layer of sweat off his forehead.

You sit down next to him. It's not a huge couch, but there's enough room for maybe two and a half people, although you somehow end up kind of leaning against his shoulder a little anyway.

He feels... solid. Not like getting beaten up, or having to think about morality. Or  _ mortality _ , for that matter. Just... like Riku.

"Do you think something really bad happened to Aeris?", you ask quietly.

"I think in this town, the freaks are the ones who had good lives," Riku says.

"...Yeah, maybe," you say. Riku searches for the remote and turns on the TV, which gets most of the same channels that the hotel room seemed to, surfing to a random movie from some place called 'Monstropolis.'

It seems like the movie is a weird comedy about two incredibly scary monsters falling in love while trapped in a supermarket in the middle of... a human invasion? Is that a thing that happens in some places? The human is like, eight years old, of indeterminable gender, and is carrying a stick. The characters all treat this as if it's obviously horrifying, but it doesn't feel like that's the comedy, it feels like it's the serious thing they're making really dark jokes about.

"That one was, uh... Cheryl, right? The monster with eyes for hair?" You're having trouble keeping track of some of these characters.

"No, I think Cheryl was the blue one with all the spines. The one who's engaged to the pink land shark who keeps wearing different colors of palm tree pattern shirts."

"Whoa, they were engaged? I didn't even notice. I thought he was her cousin somehow."

"...This is seriously bizarre," Riku says as the front door opens again and Aeris steps in.

"Oh yeah," she says, glancing at the TV. "You get used to that. Sometimes we have broadcasts that are just like... what's goin' on over  _ there? _ And maybe it's for the best that we don't know." She vanishes into the kitchen, and a minute later comes out with steaming hot baked egg-wedge-layer things on plates. They actually smell pretty good.

"Is... Cid coming?" You ask hesitantly.

"Oh, he doesn't like people much," Aeris says, waving her hand. "His will be waiting for him in the fridge when he comes back from wherever he wandered off to."

You eat dinner with Aeris Gainsborough, who you definitely do not have to kill. It's... nice, if a little bit quiet. The food is good - it tastes kinda like lasagna, but with some weird undertones that you don't want to think about too hard. Eggy, and like... green, despite only having a little bit of green stuff in there.

"Hey Riku, mind helping with the dishes?", Aeris asks when everybody's finished. He shrugs and follows her into the kitchen.

You go sit on the couch again, kind of zoning out at the tail end of the Monstropolis movie. The human got a water pistol and everyone is dying now, and it's probably supposed to be funny in a dark way, but right now that just feels a little too real. You can overhear snippets of Riku and Aeris talking about weird movies in the kitchen, but nothing substantial. Finally, the credits roll.

The front door creaks open again, and Cid finally enters his own home, sitting down in the easy chair next to the couch with a long groan. He takes the remote without asking, not that you care, and starts going to from channel to channel so fast you're not sure how he's even absorbing what he sees.

"You help Aeris with dinner?", he asks.

"Uh, yeah," you say. He nods gruffly, grunting a little.

...Wow, you are  _ really _ tired now that the food is settling in your stomach, but tired in a weird way where you feel really awake at the same time, like you'd  _ want _ to sleep but you don't know if you  _ could. _

Aeris and Riku filter back into the room, and Riku sits down next to you again.

"Hey Aeris, do you have any spells that make people go to sleep?", you ask half-seriously.

"Oh yeah, definitely," she says, which you weren't expecting. "Is that what you want?" Well, if it's an  _ option... _ this really feels like one of those nights where you lay in bed for three hours staring at the ceiling, and you hate those, so...

"...Yeah," you say. "I think I do."

Aeris just nods, flicking her staff in your direction. The air wavers a little, and suddenly you feel incredibly sleepy, like your body's filling up with liquid lead, but in a pleasant way.

You yawn, slowly slumping over against Riku's shoulder, and not five seconds later you're asleep.


	5. You Can Always Make New Friends

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The "chapter by [author pseud]" thing doesn't particularly mean anything here, by the way. We write together on Google Docs and then I'm the one who formats and posts it.

You wake up kinda sluggishly, still tired, but at least not as tired as you were when you fell asleep, which has to count as progress. Then you blink some of the goo out of your eyes and try to remember where the heck you _ are. _

...Right! The apartment over CID'S REPAIRS, where he and the real Aeris Gainsborough live, and you got put out with some kind of spell while still sitting on the couch. You guess nobody wanted to move you, not that there was probably anywhere useful to move you to anyway.

You're really stiff from sleeping sitting up, but as soon as you try to move, you realize you're pinned by something heavy and warm. Riku's somehow ended up sprawled over your lap, with one of his legs dangling awkwardly off the couch. You cover your mouth so you don't laugh and wake him up. He'd probably be super mad if he knew this happened, and then everything would be weird for a whole weekend. Not that you know that from experience, or anything!

Maybe you'll just take a minute to get your bearings before you decide what to do. You yawn as quietly as you can and look around the room, getting a better look at some of the decorations. They're the pretty kind of decorations, mostly, with flowers and little knick-knacks all over the shelves. The whole house smells pretty, too. (And now that you think about it, so did Aeris.)

But there are also a few things that must be Cid's - some heavy technical-looking manuals with dark grease stains on them, the odd machine part here and there. Well, maybe those aren't so much decorations as they are just random stuff he left lying around-

Suddenly, you feel cold hands clap over your eyes. You're too startled to even make noise, just kinda freezing up and choking on a gasp, and then you hear a familiar voice.

"Guess who?" The hands fall away, and Kairi leans over your head from above, giggling mischievously. "You should've seen your face."

She leans away, and you feel an incredibly faint thump as she maybe flops behind you on the back of the couch, but you can't turn around without throwing Riku off, so you can't actually see her to be sure.

...So you're definitely dreaming, then, right? You do feel weirdly floaty, like you're having trouble waking up all the way, but if this is a dream, it's _ really _ vivid.

"I wasn't sure if I'd see you again," you say, not mentioning that this probably doesn't really count as seeing her at all.

"Sorry," she says, not sounding particularly sorry. "I guess you're stuck with me." Then, quietly, "At least for now. But... let's not worry about that. I just want to be happy that you found somewhere better to stay. They seem like nice people."

"I dunno if this counts as finding somewhere? It's not like we're moving in or anything, I don't think. But... yeah, somebody's couch sure beats sleeping under a tarp and getting woken up by ice monsters. I do feel bad about running around town bad-mouthing Aeris, though."

"That doesn't really seem like it's your fault," Kairi says.

"Yeah, I guess, but... hey, wait, why do you know about that?" Because it's a dream, probably, but you're kind of desperate to believe there's more to what's happening than just that.

"I was watching for some of it," she says, and you try really hard to not think that's creepy. You also really have no idea what to _ do _ with that, so maybe you should just change the subject? The TV remote is somehow still within reach...

"...Well, I'm not going anywhere right now," you say, gesturing vaguely toward Riku's unconscious body. "Wanna watch some weird TV?"

"Sure," Kairi says. "That sounds nice."

You turn it on and then quickly get the sound down real low so it doesn't wake Riku up. The channel you're on has some kind of exercise show playing, except the person leading the exercises is a mouse.

"I think... I think this is assuming we'd have tails," you say. "Yeah, see? He's doing the same tail thing along with every sit-up."

"Sora, that's a she," Kairi says.

"Wow, really? How can you tell?" It just... looks like a big mouse to you. Just a big old mouse, except proportioned like a human person would be.

"I'm not sure how to explain. How can you tell anyone's anything?"

Well, now you're just embarrassed, and also watching mice exercise is only interesting for the first thirty seconds or so. You flick over a few channels, past some static, and settle on the first thing that comes up.

_ "... of course, the government has their story, and they're sticking to it," _ someone says in that really specific Documentary Voice as the camera pans over a huge cityscape from above. _ "But many citizens still ask the question: what _ really _ happened the day our streets ran gold with molten cheese?" _

"Is... wait, is this real? I mean, I don't even know what world this is from, and I already have questions about the cheese," you say, staring in grim fascination. The screen shifts between out-of-focus photos of a girl with bright red hair who looks kind of like... a spy, maybe? It's hard to tell. Either way, the narrator keeps implying she can't be trusted.

"This all seems very... paranoid," Kairi says, audibly bemused. "Maybe sometimes a river of cheese is just a river of cheese."

You watch a little more of that, trying to piece the history together, but you just don't have enough context to make it not seem completely insane, and eventually you get tired of hearing the narrator's celebrity conspiracy theories or whatever and continue your search for an actually watchable channel.

"Wait... I don't understand," you say, squinting a little. "What even are those? Oh, are those _ cars?" _ Much like with guns, you've never actually seen one before now, but you've heard things.

"Yes, those are definitely cars," Kairi says.

"Okay, well, then I sorta get that the cars are people or whatever, but... I can't tell if this is _ real," _ you say. "Like, is this fiction in whatever world it's from, or is this from a world of cars that are also people?"

"I don't know," Kairi says. "I... I really don't. I'm not sure I _ want _ to know."

"I _ definitely _ don't wanna know," you say, and change the channel. "My brain's been fried enough lately without finding out about something like that. Oh hey, cool, a parade!"

A long procession of animal people and animal people-shaped floats drift down a vibrant, whimsical street. There are cats playing trumpets, dogs marching with swords and shields, a group of cows or something juggling in sync. Colorful confetti rains from somewhere seemingly high above the rooftops.

"That's Disney Kingdom, right?", Kairi asks. You fumble around with the buttons to bring up the channel guide, and it does seem like it. "I've never seen it before."

"You know about that world?" Kairi was a little different than most of the refugee kids back home. She didn't talk about the world she was from much at all. You actually don't really even have a mental image of it in your head.

"Yes, we used to trade with them, sometimes. I think I remember looking out my window from time to time, watching the ships come down from the sky and land somewhere far away at the outskirts of the city. The memory's become so distant, now." She sounds uncharacteristically glum. Come to think of it... hasn't something felt kinda different about Kairi, during this conversation? Or are you just imagining it?

"Whoa... that sounds awesome. Wait, from the _ sky? _ People from other worlds... came from the sky?" That's really not at all what you were expecting, for some reason.

"Of course. I think that's normally how it works... but maybe there are other ways, too? People at the laboratory used to talk about theories, sometimes, but I have no idea if they ever proved any of them."

You kinda feel like you could pull half a dozen _ really good questions _ out of that statement, but something about her tone is making you think it'd be better to change the subject. But, before you get the chance, Kairi does it for you.

"Oh," she says, sounding kinda shocked. "Sora, did you read the ticker tape at the bottom of the screen?" Actually, you hadn't even noticed that was there. You lean forward and squint a little, trying to make out the fancy squiggly letters.

"Their... king is missing," you say. "And it's telling people what to do if they have information."

"That's not good," she says. "He always seemed so nice."

"Wait, you knew their _ king? _ How?"

"No, not really, but I saw him out in the halls, a few times. He was friends with... some of the people I lived with, I guess. He never seemed to act much like a king, I was really surprised when I first heard someone call him Your Majesty."

"Well, I hope they find him," you say. "I mean, how do you lose a _ king? _ Where could he be?"

The music quiets down a little, and the camera shifts to show a mouse in a really fancy expensive-looking pink dress. And is that... a crown on her head?

"Greetings, people of Disney Kingdom," the little mouse says. "I'll try make this brief. Normally, your King would open this speech, but I'm afraid that you'll have to make do with a Queen in his place." She smiles sadly, which is a weird expression to see on a mouse.

"Queen... Minnie, I think," Kairi says quietly. "I've never seen her before, either."

"It was my decision not to cancel this parade, given that I know everyone has worked so very hard to make it wonderful," the Queen continues, "And I think we all deserve some happiness, especially now. But I must ask that all of you please remember that Disney Kingdom is currently in a state of crisis."

"Wow, this got dark fast," you say.

"As you know, King Mickey is missing, and has been for some time. Thanks to the efforts of many, many lovely people, our Kingdom is still going strong, but... only time will tell how long that can last. So, viewers, I implore you... wherever you are, on whatever world... if you have any information about my husband, anything at all... please, tell me."

Her voice breaks just a little, right at the end. She turns away, and the camera cuts back to the parade, maybe a little too quickly. You feel... really weird.

Like, you _ understand _ that people are people. When you see a lion eating at a restaurant, it's not exactly hard to grasp that that's a real person, and not, like... uh, whatever a normal lion is? But this is different, somehow.

It's not just weird TV for aliens. It's a real parade, in a real city you've never seen, full of real people, and you just watched the Queen of another world almost break down in tears on TV because her husband disappeared and nobody knows why.

...Maybe you liked it better when you were just trying to figure out whether that Zootopian movie was supposed to be horror or not.

"...Is somebody like me... really the right person to have a keyblade?", you mumble to nobody in particular, staring down at your hands. Surely there's somebody out there in the worlds, somebody somewhere, who's cut out for this. Somebody who knows what to do. Somebody who's not afraid to fight. Somebody who would see a problem like this, and go _ fix it. _

"That's right!" Kairi perks up instantly, even though you were being kind of a downer. "Sora, I forgot all about that. You have a keyblade! That's so awesome!"

You blink. You're really not used to hearing that much excitement in Kairi's voice. Like... ever.

"Uh, yeah, I guess. Were those, like, a thing you knew about?" Seeing this world get TV from _ other worlds, _ finding out all sorts of crazy things... it's got you wondering just how much of a tiny backwater world Destiny Islands might have been.

"Of course! There are so many stories and legends. But I never really thought I'd see one again with my own eyes."

"Whoa, you've seen one before? I thought they were super rare, or they didn't exist anymore or something?"

"They are. But I've seen... a couple of them, I suppose. On the world I lived on before Destiny Islands, there was this girl. She had a keyblade, and she saved me from monsters with it. The girl who gave me my necklace. There was another person, too, someone who worked at the laboratory... But I don't think he was the type to show it off."

"Wow." You hadn't even thought about that girl in years. When you first met Kairi, she mentioned her once in a while, kinda wistfully, but somewhere along the way it just... stopped coming up for some reason. "That's crazy, Kairi. Hey, what do you mean 'the world you lived on _ before _ Destiny Islands?' That makes it sound like there was another one before _ that, _or something."

"...There was," she says quietly. "But I was really little back then. There isn't too much I remember."

"Oh," you say, not really sure how to handle that information. You're one hundred percent sure Kairi has literally never said that before. It never even crossed your mind that she might have lived through _ two _ end-of-the-worlds. That's... so much.

_ ("Sorry, Fang. If you could see me now, you'd probably... be pretty...") _

"But anyway, I'm really happy for you, Sora. I think if anyone deserves to be chosen, it's you." She sounds like she really _ means _ it, too.

"I dunno about that, Kairi. I'm just... me." You can't think of a better way to explain it than that. You kinda think that should really say it all.

"Exactly," she says. "That's exactly why."

You sit together for few seconds in near-silence, watching the parade continue on TV, and you kinda glance around the room awkwardly, hoping something will give you inspiration for like, any other thing you could possibly talk about. Eventually your eyes settle on an old photo in a dusty frame, next to one of Cid's big technical manuals.

"Hey, Kairi, you see that photo?" You point to it, and vaguely feel her head move behind you in a way you're just gonna assume was nodding. "That girl... doesn't she look a lot like Aeris?" It's _ not _ Aeris, obviously; her hair is brown and she seems older, and it's hard to imagine Aeris wearing a lab coat. But even so, the resemblance is impossible to miss.

"Yeah, I think so. Maybe she has a big sister?" Or maybe she _ had _ a big sister, you try not to think but think anyway. "I'm not sure if I'm seeing Aeris the way she really is, though."

"Uh... I have no clue what that means," you say, a little nervously.

"Sorry," Kairi says. "It's hard to explain. Lately I've been... seeing people differently, somehow, and I don't know how much of it is real. It's like... seeing the _ idea _ of a person, instead of seeing the person, if that makes any sense at all."

It doesn't, but you nod anyway, because that seems like the polite thing to do.

"...Come to think of it," she says, "There was one person who wasn't like that. Or at least, I think he wasn't. That man on the rooftop..." Her voice is weirdly shaky when she says it. Distant, kinda, like she's remembering something scary. "I wonder what that means."

"Hey, wait, so what do you see when you look at me, then?" you ask, because you really don't want to know the answer in that super specific way where you'll go crazy if you don't get exactly what you didn't want.

...A couple of seconds go by, but Kairi doesn't answer.

"Kairi? You're still there, right?"

"Um, yes! Sorry. I was distracted. Hey, Sora, can I ask you a dumb question?" She sounds weirdly on edge, so you try to nod in the most reassuring way possible, even though you don't know what that would actually be. "What do you see on that table over there, by the lamp?"

You squint a little to see it; the lamp's not actually turned on, unfortunately, so that part of the room is kinda shadowy.

"Uh, a stuffed animal I think? A really nice looking stuffed cat, yeah. It's got black and white fur, and it's wearing a cape and a little crown." You wonder how much a stuffed animal that looks that detailed costs. Kairi's grandma _ (was) _ is the mayor, and only one or two of her stuffed animals came close to being that high quality.

"...Really," she says, faintly. "It looks like a stuffed animal to you?"

"Why? What are you seeing?"

"...Well, whoever the girl in that photo is, I hope she's okay," Kairi says after a long, uncomfortable pause, and you guess that's your cue to let it go.

"Yeah," you say. "Me too."

"...Hey, Sora," Kairi says. "I'm... starting to feel really tired. I don't think I can keep talking for much longer."

"Oh," you say. "But like... that's just for now, right? You're not..."

"I think it's temporary," she says, and you can actually hear the fatigue in her voice. "It has been so far. But... I don't really understand any of this, and I don't know what's going to happen next. Sora, if something happens and I can't see you anymore... I want you to try to be happy, okay?"

"Kairi, come on, don't say stuff like that," you say. "...Kairi?"

You turn your head to look at her, but there's nobody there.

* * *

Your eyes open and you jolt a bit more upright with a small gasp. Wait, what... happened? Weren't you already awake? You sleepily look around the room, and mostly everything's the same... except the TV is off, and Riku is way on the other side of the couch now, with a wide gulf of space in between you.

...Right.

You guess you should have known it was a dream. You should probably accept that it was a dream, now, instead of doing what you're actually doing, which is sitting here hoping you just fell asleep again and Riku woke up and turned the TV off and then went back to sleep in a different spot.

It's plausible, is the thing. It's exactly what you'd expect Riku to do in that situation. It would be really easy to just... decide to believe in that. And you _ want _ to. Maybe you're even desperate to.

You're just not sure if you _ should. _

* * *

Eventually Riku wakes up, and not long after that, Aeris comes in (through the front door; you guess _ somebody _ has to get up early around here), and not long after _ that _ you're having breakfast, which is... almost recognizably food, especially if you don't look at it. Still, though, that's a really nice change of pace from yesterday's breakfast of stress and combat. Maybe today your lunch will be food, too, instead of _ more _ stress and combat!

Getting ready for the day's not too much trouble. Your clothes are barely dirty, somehow, and Aeris turns out to be the kind of person who keeps a million spare toothbrushes in her house. Riku beats you to the shower, and by the time you've spent your turn and the hot water's all gone, Riku is already plopped back on the couch, watching the car people on TV.

You feel kinda weird about the idea of watching TV right now, honestly, but you don't want to make that anybody else's problem, so you sit down and do your best to be normal. Maybe the car people won't be very sad, right?

...They're not, actually, but that doesn't end up making it better.

The door creaks open again, and Cid hovers in the entryway, glaring at you. You're starting to get the feeling that's just his normal face, though.

"Hey, keyblade kid," Cid says. "The idiots came to pick you up. Get the hell outta here."

"Oh, uh, alright, sure," you say, glancing at Riku nervously. He shrugs. The two of you filter out of Aeris and Cid's house, winding your way down the rickety stairs.

You _ really _ hope this goes well, and isn't weird, and that nobody's still mad at Riku for trying to stab one of them. You're not mad at them for beating you up anymore, so it only seems fair to let it go, right?

Neither of them is down there at the bottom of the stairs. You're about to circle around and see if they're waiting in the shop or something, when Aeris rounds the corner and waves. You... guess she left the house at some point? Honestly, you were distracted enough that you hadn't noticed.

"Hey guys!" Aeris says cheerfully. "Sorry to make things complicated, but I could use some help."

"What's up?", you ask.

"I need somebody with a little muscle to move something. The Heartless knocked over a big statue last night, and it's blocking one of the roads. Leon and Yuna were supposed to fix it, but they're going out with you instead, Sora. So, Riku, _ you're _ free. What do you say?"

"Wait, why doesn't Cid just help?", you say, maybe a tiny bit petulantly. You're not trying to be demanding or anything, you're just really nervous about all this and you're not sure you want to do it while completely alone with some people who tried to fight you yesterday.

"Unfortunately, Cid's busy," Aeris says, shrugging.

"_ Unfortunately _ Cid ain't sixteen anymore, goddammit," Cid yells from upstairs. Aeris rolls her eyes.

Well, it's fine, right? Riku's himself. He'll just say no and insist on going along, because of course he will, and then it won't even be your fault.

"...Yeah, I guess I could help," Riku says, a little grudgingly, but not _ that _ grudgingly. "I might have some questions for you, anyway."

"Thanks, Riku," Aeris says. "I figured I could count on you."

And hey, you know, that's fine! It's probably a good thing that he's not causing any friction. And it'd be great for Riku to actually have more friends, wouldn't it? You're _ both _ doing something cool and important today.

Really, this is the best way things could've gone.

"Well... see you around, Sora," Riku says awkwardly. "Don't get killed by monsters."

"Yeah, uh... good luck... lifting stuff," you say even more awkwardly, and then an impatient-looking Leon comes around the corner to investigate, and it's time for you to go your separate ways.

* * *

** **

You watch as Sora dutifully follows a couple violent jerks off into the distance. Once he's finally out of sight, you turn to Aeris.

"...So what are we _ really _ doing today?", you ask, before anything else happens.

"Well, _ I _ think it was plausible," Aeris says indignantly. "I could've cut it into carryable chunks with magic or something. I'd still need help, too."

"What damn mischief are you up to now?" Cid calls down from the top of the stars.

"Leon and the girl don't want me coming with," you say, because you're really not in the mood to play dumb, "and things will go much more smoothly for Sora if we don't start this off with an argument about having me there."

"I think it's a positive opportunity for him to understand what he wants to do," Aeris says firmly.

You think it's a stupid hoop Sora has to jump through so these people will let him keep something that's about as rightfully his as anything in the universe possibly could be, but whatever. She's entitled to her wrong opinion.

"Anyway, like I asked before," you say very patiently, "What are we _ really _ doing today?" Maybe she doesn't even have anything in mind. You'd love that, actually. But you're also not entirely opposed to keeping busy.

"There _ is _ something I could use a hand with. You don't have to, obviously! But also, I think it's at least a little more interesting than lifting stuff, and probably a lot more helpful." She looks up at you with her eyes all big and hopeful, and you try real hard not to roll yours.

"...Your friends obviously aren't about to trust me," you say after taking a second to consider your response. "Do you not trust their judgment?"

"Well, actually I don't, no, or at least not Leon's," Aeris says, "But also, so what? This isn't anybody's first time around the block, Riku. I'm the one who'll talk to you, and I'm the one who'll decide whether you're dangerous, or whether you're just the kind of person who won't let his friends get beaten up by idiots with good intentions."

...You have to say, you actually sort of appreciate her just coming right out and saying it, because it wasn't exactly hard to guess all of that on your own and you _ don't _ appreciate people treating you like you're naive.

"Uh-huh. And what's the verdict so far?"

"_ So far, _ I'd say I know exactly as much as I already did, which is that if rude and broody people were automatically dangerous, then Leon would've become a serial killer _ years _ ago." You snort despite yourself, and then try really hard to pretend you didn't. "So yeah, I'm willing to take a bit of a gamble on that. Now, how about we go get stuff done?"

_ ...Thanks, _ you almost say, before you catch yourself.

"...Fair enough," you say. "Lead the way."

* * *

Unfortunately, everything _ is _ pretty awkward. Leon and Yuna lead the way down a series of winding city streets you don't think you've been to before, and nobody's saying a whole lot of anything, and you're wondering why the name Yuna seems so _ familiar _ to you. There were a couple of Yunas on the main island back home, so that's probably all it is, but... man, it's really bothering you for some reason.

"Hey, uh," you say falteringly, "No hard feelings about yesterday, right?"

Honestly, the way you're saying it makes it sound like it was a lot more your fault than it actually was, but if that's what it costs to smooth things over, you can deal with it.

"Don't make a whole thing out of it," Leon says. "Plenty of people have an impulsive moron shackled to them, dragging them into trouble. Not much to be done about that."

"Believe me," Yuna says dryly, "It's a _ very _ familiar problem." The two of them stop for a second, exchanging dirty looks as if to say 'and this is _ my _ idiot right here.'

It's not like you exactly _ wanted _ Riku to escalate the situation, but... what does it say about you if you admit you probably would've done the same thing if you'd been in his position and he'd been in yours? Maybe with a bit less attempted murder, but...

"Anyway, Sora," Leon says, picking up speed again. Man, he and Yuna both walk _ really fast, _ it's wearing you out a little trying to keep up. "When we get to where we're going, we need you to listen to both of us, whatever happens. If we tell you to stand down, you stand down. Got it?"

"Uh, I guess so, sure," you say, at least mostly intending to play along, but if somebody tells you to do something dumb, you're still not gonna do it.

"And _ be careful _with that keyblade," Leon says sharply. "It might not look like it, but it's a deadly weapon, as you've demonstrated already. And don't make the mistake of thinking it'll only kill Heartless. I have no intention of dying because some rookie didn't take his sword seriously enough, alright?"

"Leon, cut it out," Yuna says. You can't see her roll her eyes from here, but her tone makes it obvious. "He's not a six-year-old playing with sharp toys. Just... don't point it at anyone you'd regret stabbing, keep track of your allies, and you'll be fine."

"Yeah, I can do that," you say nervously, suddenly a lot less sure you can do that.

"If we tell you to hit the deck, don't think about it. Just do it. Same goes for pretty much any sudden, urgent commands," Leon says.

"What he means is that if I offer some fire support, you _ really _ don't want to be standing in the way," Yuna clarifies. "Really, the best advice I can give you is to try not to panic. We shouldn't be facing anything we can't handle. Stay focused, do your best, and trust that we've got your back."

You kind of don't think 'try not to panic' has ever helped a single person not panic in the history of the human race, but whatever. You'll definitely try!

"So... where are we going, anyway?", you ask, because nobody's actually explained to you what you're doing today, other than to imply it includes monsters. Yuna turns back to you and smiles.

"Today, we're heading to..."

* * *

"...The _ abandoned _ districts, huh," you say, really not caring for the sound of that. "Your town has whole districts that are just... empty other than squatters? Couldn't you find a pretty easy solution for the whole housing crisis if you just, you know, _ un-abandoned _ them?"

"In theory, sure," Aeris says, bending over to pick up a heavy, almost cauldron-like iron pot. "In practice, it's not so easy. And there are a lot of risks, not all of them obvious at first glance." She gets the pot nearly a foot off the ground before she freezes, sucking in a short, hissed breath, and slowly sets it back down. "Sorry," she says for no clear reason. "Could you hang this thing from the hook in the fireplace for me?"

"And what are some of those risks?", you ask, picking the pot up. It _ is _ pretty heavy, but still, even a girl would have to be pretty out of shape to struggle with that, and you get it hanging from the hook she mentioned without any real issues.

"Well, the obvious one is Heartless," Aeris says. She steps back, away from the fireplace, and kind of pokes her staff in its direction, instantly igniting the wood underneath the pot. "Those districts aren't at all secure anymore, and there are always plenty of Heartless milling around. Even though we try to thin them out, more always come."

"Ah. That might be tough to manage without a lot of manpower." How many people in this town can really fight for themselves? You guess if they can't even hold all their own districts, the answer must be 'more than on Destiny Islands, but not enough,' and that's probably all you need to know.

"Yep." Aeris sifts through a pile of bottles, cans, and various containers that she's gathered here, pouring out one big bottle full of weird silvery stuff into the cauldron, then following it up with a much smaller bottle of something thick and green. "That, and when we lose territory, it tends to be in places with fewer people."

"Lose territory? What do you mean by that?" She can't just mean it in the normal, easy to interpret way. That ought to have been covered by the rest of this.

"It's complicated. Traverse Town is... special, I guess? In a whole lot of ways, actually." She dangles a long wooden stick into the pot and stirs a little. "For now, let's just say it's safest to live in groups, the larger the better."

"...Right," you say, a bit irritably. "In that case, what the hell are you pouring into that pot?"

"Oh, reagents for a potion base, that's all." The silver-green mixture begins to bubble, and Aeris extends her hand over the pot and conjures a ball of pale greenish-white light, dropping it into the fluid and holding it there. "That and some green dye. Potion bases are pretty much inert on their own, but they're great at carrying a magic charge, and that's all I need from them."

"Huh. Is _ that _ how it works," you say, not particularly to Aeris. Destiny Islands didn't really do the whole potions thing. If you were hurt you went to a healer, and that was pretty much that.

"Sure is. Obviously I could just _ buy _ some, but it hurts my budget a lot less to make my own in bulk, and it just so happens that donating medical supplies goes a whole lot better when it doesn't mean you're skipping dinner three nights a week." She keeps the ball of light down in the center middle of the pot and resumes stirring with her other hand.

"Seems reasonable. Where'd you learn to do something like this, anyway?"

"Oh, I picked up some tricks here and there. Lots of people come to Traverse Town, and plenty of them know all sorts of weird magic. This can be a little tricky to get right, but it's basically doable for anyone who can work a bit of light magic, and that does happen to kinda be my thing, so I help out with relief efforts sometimes when I've got a minute to spare."

Ah. Of course. Light magic. Why wouldn't that be her thing? It's everybody else's.

"Okay, let's see," Aeris mumbles to herself. "I think that'll do for now..." She extinguishes the fire with her staff again and dips a ladle into the pot, spooning out globs of thick green goo onto a waxed sheet like she's going to bake cookies with it. "I like this mixture because the outsides of these ought to harden on their own. That might not seem like a big deal, but trust me, you make enough potions and eventually the cost of bottles really starts to add up."

Honestly, this is fascinating, and in theory watching this could actually be fun... but for some reason, all you can really think about is how it's something you'll never be able to do. Exactly what part of this did she need _ your _ help for, again? Lifting the pot?

"Cool, follow me to the workshop," Aeris says suddenly, leaving the potions on the counter to harden or whatever. You notice she's leaning on her staff a little bit more than usual as she walks; did she seriously throw her back out trying to pick that thing up? That seems excessive.

The workshop is just full of piles of stuff. Scrap metal, crystals, leather strips, chains, cords, string, machine parts, weird unidentifiable jiggly things, and much more.

"You know, I'm actually really glad you're here today!" Aeris says, gathering up some crystals, beads, patches of fabric, and a couple obscure little tools. "There's something I've really wanted to try for a while now, but I can't do it on my own."

"Oh yeah? What's that?" You're pretty damn sure there was _ somebody _ else around here who could lift a normal amount of heavy stuff.

"Well, sometimes I make home-made charms, right? And with your help, I could finally whip up some darkness-imbued ones." She says this completely casually, so much so that it takes you a second to absorb the implications.

"Wait, why the hell would you want that?" It's just... a pretty dubious thing to say, is all.

"Why wouldn't I? For some reason, they seem to make people less appetizing to Heartless, and they're _ definitely _ useful for helping weather all those crazy dark attacks, and that could really save some lives in the abandoned districts where nobody has any barriers to protect them."

"Oh. I guess that... makes sense," you say slowly.

"Of course it does! Unfortunately, I don't have a drop of dark magic of my own," she says, and... actually sounds almost forlorn about it. You still feel like you're missing something, or like somebody is playing a really tasteless prank on you.

"What's unfortunate about that?" You try to keep your voice neutral.

"Because I want to make the charms, like I said! And probably do other useful things, too. Anyway, that's where you come in. If you can provide some dark magic, I can handle the rest of the process."

"I... guess I could do that," you say, feeling extremely lost.

Aeris brings over a couple weird plants, sets a bowl on a work table and upends another bottle of a _ different _ weird shimmery fluid into that, then gets to work cutting strips of fabric and tying them into knots, with a single leaf tucked into the middle of each. Then she dunks them into the bowl. Each of them comes out looking like a sunset, even though they started on plain black cloth. She lays them out on a rack and motions for you to stand next to her.

"Okay, they're basically primed. If you can pour some darkness into them one by one, I'll let you know how much is enough, alright? Don't bother with anything elementally aspected, by the way, this stuff is really only good for esoterics." Well, you have no idea what that word means in this context, but you're not actually sure if you can separate the _ dark _ from the _ fire. _

"Uh... yeah," you say, staring at the strips of cloth like they're going to leap off the rack and strangle you to death. "Well, I'll try, at least. I'm not exactly an expert on this."

"That's fine," Aeris says. "Take your time."

You stretch out your hand toward the rack and immediately stall out. How do you just... do a thing like this on command, when you've spent so much time desperately trying _ not _ to do it, on purpose or by accident?

_ ("All this time, I've known exactly what you are. I watched you laugh and clap your grubby little baby hands when the shadows came down from the sky. I watched you stealing the very light from the world around you. Stealing it from me! Did you think that if you just pretended for long enough, I would FORGET?!") _

You swallow. Take a breath.

And you let a thin stream of dark motes filter out from your palm, toward the first charm. They twinkle in the open air, like the bruised-and-silver clouds at the edge of someone's vision right before they black out, and the little fabric knots drink them in almost greedily.

...You feel like you're getting away with something, even though you can't describe exactly what that something _ is, _ and Aeris is just watching with the same easy smile on her face, like this doesn't bother her at all.

_ ("Nothing you could do in a LIFETIME could ever make me forget what you ARE!") _

Suddenly, you feel heat blooming under your skin, and the dark magic you're putting out begins to flicker, wisps of hot violet putting out little puffs of ethereal black smoke.

"Shit," you say, cutting off the flow as fast as you can. "Did I burn anything?" You can't believe you screwed this up, except of course you can believe it, because of course you did, how could you possibly not have-

"No no, it's fine! They're really not flammable, and neither is the table. That's just one of the many reasons I do my enchanting in the same place Cid fixes machines." Aeris puts her hand on your shoulder, and you do your best not to flinch away. "Take your time. They're not gonna dry for a few more minutes, anyway."

"Okay," you say, trying to just... breathe, like a non-crazy person. "Okay. Yeah."

"You're doing fine," she says gently. You close your eyes, swallow hard, and try your hardest to just... clear your mind and focus on the task at hand.

The second charm goes a lot more smoothly.

The third charm gets done without any problems at all.

* * *

** **

"Alright, kid, you're almost up," Leon says. "But first, I want you to hang back and let us thin the Heartless out some. No point throwing you in the deep end just to watch you drown."

"Keep an eye on the Heartless, by the way," Yuna says. "Most of the time, the ones that look similar act basically the same way, so you might pick up more than you'd think, even before you actually fight."

"Hey, guys," you say suddenly, because something about that statement is sitting really uncomfortably with you. "What exactly _ are _ the Heartless?"

"...Your world fell," Leon says. "You must have seen it happen."

You feel kinda dizzy all of a sudden. Sick, like you ate something weird and the mistake is catching up with you.

"...Yeah," you say finally. "Yeah. That's... what I thought."

And that's why what Yuna said feels so... wrong. If every single one of them was a person, a _ different person... _ then why are there different types of them? Shouldn't every single Heartless be unique? Was Vanille special, somehow, or are there a thousand others like that, somewhere way out in the dark places of the universe?

"Eyes up, kid," Leon says. "They're coming. We'll show you how it's done."

For just a second, you're confused. You seem to be all alone here, just the three of you walking in the cold wind, watching bits of trash blow along the street.

And then, all at once, there are Heartless bursting from what feels like every shadow in sight, pouring out onto starlit cobblestones, misshapen limbs and claws scrabbling loudly as they haul themselves up out of storm drains and skitter across battered rooftops.

Leon and Yuna get to work without hesitating at all, and... yeah, wow. If this is how it's done, you're not sure you're cut out for doing it.

They tear through the Heartless one after another. Leon's swordgun splits the unarmored ones apart like he's barely trying, and whenever he _ does _ attack one with armor, that firecracker-sound blasts out of his sword and it shears right on through. Occasionally, he'll throw a ball of fire from his left hand to create better openings for himself.

Yuna, meanwhile, is... pretty much just a whirlwind of violence? She shifts from outfit to outfit like it's second nature, hardly keeping the same weapons for more than a few seconds at a time. Her guns pull the flying Heartless out of the air, her magic devastates tighter clusters of them, and her sword filets anything that gets close to her.

The two of them fight so _ confidently _ together. They barely even have to communicate, as if they know each other's fighting styles so well that they can already guess what's going to happen next and then plan for it. They set each other up for attacks, Leon locking big Heartless down for Yuna to fry them alive, Yuna corralling groups of them together with walls of ice and cutting winds and leaving them for Leon to finish off.

And more than a few times, one of them has the other's back. They cover each other's weaknesses almost without trying. You wonder what it must be like, to fight alongside somebody you can trust _ that much. _ Maybe that's why they're able to go out and do these things all the time, without being so terrified that they can't keep it up.

Throughout all of this, Yuna and Leon don't let a single Heartless get anywhere near you.

...If Leon had a keyblade, he wouldn't have to waste whatever exploding shells he has in his sword. It would just cut through armor without any difficulty at all, and he could put his effort into other aspects of his fighting. He might even be able to use that magic effectively enough to kill with it, instead of just for distractions.

If Yuna had a keyblade, she could channel her magic through it better than any staff. She could merge its powers with hers, shift its shape and abilities, cast spells without having to put away her sword or her guns. The keyblade could do it all, and do it better and more safely. How would anything stand up to a fighter like that?

You think you understand, now, why Leon wanted to take it from you. Like, you got the gist of it before, but now you can _ feel _ it, you can feel the weight of the weapon you're keeping out of the hands of people who deserve it more, who can use it the way it was meant to be used.

Wait... why did you know all of that? How do you know a keyblade can do those things? You got it two days ago, and you didn't know what it was called until last night. Are you daydreaming? Making stuff up like a little kid?

...That's the explanation that makes the most sense, but somehow, deep inside your heart, you know that's not it.

"Alright, that's most of them," Leon says as the Heartless finally dwindle. He isn't even breathing all that hard. "Sora, come on. We're heading for that dead end street over there."

"Uh, okay," you say, kinda wishing he'd said _ why, _ because dead ends and monsters do seem like a bad combination to you. You follow him and Yuna anyway, and eventually you're there, with high house walls on three sides of you, boxing you in.

"There's one Soldier left for now," Yuna says, glancing over her shoulder; you're still being followed by one of those person-sized armored Heartless with the big claws, the creepy ones that jerk around and make horrible noises.

_ (The kind that killed Riku's-) _

"Let's see you build a little experience, kid," Leon says.

"Quit calling me a kid," you mutter. Wait, how do you call the keyblade to you, anyway? So far it's always just showed up when you needed it, but you don't want to wait until a monster is about to claw off your face just to be able to get out your sword, that's stupid.

Maybe you're just supposed to, like, stick out your hand and try to want to be holding it really intensely? Or is that stupid? You haven't got any better ideas, so you just do it, trying to imagine the keyblade springing to life in your hand, and also trying to pretend you're not embarrassing yourself...

...And you're honestly surprised when it works just like that, the keyblade's weirdly familiar weight settling into your palm.

Yuna flickers with light, settling into the outfit that comes with the guns; you guess maybe that's so she can just shoot the thing if you start losing. That's fine with you, as long as she doesn't miss and take you out instead. No, okay, who are you kidding here? She's not gonna miss.

The Heartless... the Soldier, you guess, if that's what it's called, takes a few jerky steps toward you, awful noises echoing out from inside of its helmet like a fistful of screaming bugs. You take a deep breath, try to center yourself, and do your best not to remember that this thing was a person once.

...Hey, wait, how do you do this, exactly? You know how to fight a person with a sword, mostly, but every time you've fought monsters you were pretty much just hopped up on adrenaline, flailing around and trying not to die. You actually have no idea how to fight monsters when you have time to think about what you're doing.

You take a nervous step forward, trying to stay calm and focused, which isn't actually going super well.

"Soldiers are predictably sudden attackers," Leon says. "They don't seem to have great eyesight, and they're not very smart, but once you get within ten feet or so they go right for it. Be prepared to engage when you get close to that threshold."

You just nod, watching the Heartless carefully. It's more like fifteen feet away for now, but it's getting closer.

"In my experience, they love going for the face. Rude little bastards, right? But they're not married to that. It seems to be the favorite approach, but if that's not an option, they'll be happy to claw off any part of you they can reach." 

Why is he coaching you on this? Wouldn't he rather you just gave up and handed the keyblade over, anyway?

You take another step forward, your heart pounding. The Soldier does, too... and then it _ screams, _ thrashing its arms around crazily, and it breaks into a loose loping run, like a really drunk two-legged tiger.

Just like Leon said, it goes for the face, one of its big claws lashing out in a wide arc. You duck backward, terrified, and the claws sweep by just an inch away from your nose. But after that the Soldier's clearly off-balance, too chaotic to control its strength, so you grit your teeth and charge, striking the top half of its head clean off with your keyblade.

"Alright, not a bad start," Leon says. "I can see you've put a lot of work into that swing. Just don't forget to keep your hands up. You can't afford to let your guard down for an instant."

"Yeah, your form's great," Yuna says. "I can see you holding out for so long against Leon wasn't a fluke. You must practice a lot."

"Uh, yeah, I guess I do," you say, kinda embarrassed, but also weirdly happy. You almost feel like you're _ not _ screwing this up, and they're being nicer than you expected, even Leon. It's kinda like when Riku kicks your butt, but then teaches you how he did it.

"I think we can safely ramp things up a bit now," Yuna says, and you're immediately nervous again.

"...Yeah, alright," you say. Yuna smiles and they both wander off a bit, disappearing around a corner. Then Yuna re-enters the street dressed like a witch or something, running back toward you, raising walls of fire behind her, and Leon follows, chasing a small group of cowardly little shadows through the narrow, smoky corridor.

"Back up and make more room!", Yuna says, and you do it immediately, backing up most of the way toward the farthest wall. As she breaks off to the side and the Heartless close in, she raises another wall of flames in front of Leon, who skids to a halt. The Heartless are now trapped in the dead-end with you.

"Alright," Yuna says cheerfully. "Lesson two, here we go."

You raise your keyblade and get ready to learn.

* * *

After the charms are finished, Aeris leaves them to dry in preparation for some unknown next step, so the two of you just kill some time eating lunch. She makes two bizarre kinds of alien-appropriate food, a main dish that's like baked pyramids full of vegetables in some savory purple sauce, and a side dish of these little layered wafers that look almost normal except for how they glitter when the light catches them just right.

"...I think... I think my Mom used to make these," you say, staring at the wafers. "They're... supposed to be sweet, right? But also a little bit sharp?"

"Yep, pretty much," Aeris says. "That's surprising, though. This recipe's from a world that doesn't have humans on it at all."

"Really? That's weird. I think... my first world might have been sort of mixed, though, so maybe that's why... Not at all like the one Sora and I came here from. She tried to make it a few times when we lived there, but she was always missing some key ingredient that just didn't exist anymore."

"Yeah, that'll happen," Aeris says sadly.

"What exactly is any of this _ made of?" _ You say, squinting suspiciously at the purple sauce.

"Food, mostly," Aeris says, smiling innocently. "Don't worry, I made all the necessary substitutions to make it safe for human people to eat. I promise, I'm mostly human and I eat this stuff all the time!"

"Well, that raises at least three questions," you mumble irritably, but you don't actually care enough to ask any of them.

* * *

Eventually, you all find a quiet spot and take a break to eat lunch. Turns out fighting monsters is hungry work! Who knew, right? Apparently Aeris made some food for everybody, which is really nice of her, even if Leon makes a weird face when he sees some of it, and then you see the thing he saw and you make a weird face too.

"Are those... wow, how did she bake these into such perfect cubes?" You pick one up and yeah, sure enough, it's some kind of pastry. Something inside sloshes around just a tiny bit as you turn it over in your hand.

"Aeris is very... _ talented," _ Leon says. "And also very bored."

Yuna unpacks the other little Aeris-basket, and...

...Oh.

"No way," you say, your voice weirdly small. "Is that stir-fried paopu?" You look closer, and... most of it is right. The noodles, tofu, bean sprouts, and even the vegetables are exactly how they ought to be, but the fruit itself is... different. It's the wrong color, almost bluish somehow. A substitution, maybe? That would make sense.

"...Whoa, no _ way," _ Yuna says suddenly. "Wait, are you from _ Destiny Islands? _ Oh my god, is _ that _ the world that just fell?"

"Uh... yeah," you say uncomfortably, scooting maybe half an inch away. "That's where Riku and I... used to live."

Saying it that way feels awful, and you regret it the second it's out of your mouth. You should have just nodded or something.

"Oh, that really sucks," Yuna says, her shoulders slumping a little. "Wow."

"You... knew about my world?", you ask hesitantly.

"We get TV from there," Leon says. "Or rather, we _ got _ TV from there. So what exactly is this monstrosity, anyway? That's not actually fruit in those noodles, right?"

"Huh? Yeah, of course it is," you say, blinking, and Leon sighs like an old man at the end of a long workday. "It's supposed to have paopu fruit in it. It's kind of a special dish, you know? If you share a paopu fruit with somebody, it's supposed to bind you together forever, so normally this would be something you'd eat with family, on holidays or whatever."

"Is that true, or is it just superstition?" Leon looks even more reluctant to eat it now.

"I don't know. I don't think anybody knows. It's not like you can just _ prove _ something like that. But... this is some other fruit, anyway, so I don't think it matters." You try your best not to realize that paopu fruit isn't real anymore, and then once you realize it anyway, you try your best to forget it immediately.

"Oh, I know about that," Yuna says unexpectedly. "There was that whole story arc about it last year on _ Waves of Our Youth. _"

"...Didn't that story arc end with the one girl finding out she was her own cousin?", you say, trying to remember if that was real or if it was one of the weird fever dreams you had last time you caught the flu.

"It sure did, because that show is... _ was _ total garbage," Leon says. "It was so needlessly bizarre, and hey, maybe mixing a fishing documentary with scripted drama _ was _ original, but it sure as hell didn't work."

"You're just not the right audience, Leon," Yuna says, rolling her eyes. "It's surrealism. If it's not bizarre then it's doing something wrong. Damn, this sucks. I'm never gonna find out what _ really _ happened to Kokomi's adoptive uncle on the night of the big storm."

"I mean, it didn't exactly have a huge budget or professional writers," you say. "That show was somebody's weird student project, so I think maybe it's just... like that? We didn't exactly have a lot of stuff to broadcast, so pretty much anybody could get something on TV if they asked."

You're struggling with a powerful urge to defend Destiny Islands TV for some reason. You're not totally sure why, but you just... really don't like the idea of this being somebody else's weird fun experience that never had to be real. You don't want to know that there's somebody who thinks the tragedy of your world dying is that they don't get to see how a soap opera would've ended.

"Sometimes that's the appeal, though," Yuna argues. "People watched _Waves of our Youth_ _because_ it was dedicatedly insane, not in spite of that."

"It's like how some of us used to watch TV from Aeris's world because it was a nightmarish cyberpunk dystopia and it made us feel better about our own shitty lives," Leon says. "Or how basically anyone who watches movies from Zootopia does it because they're terrifying."

"Oh god, don't even remind me about the Shinra Channel," Yuna says, shuddering. "I want to pretend nobody in any world's ever made paramilitary group propaganda for eight year olds, okay? Just let me have this."

"I'm still not over the episode where the moral they taught was not to hesitate to turn your friends in if you suspect they might have ties to resistance efforts. I've seen horror films with less violent endings than that whole execution scene. And then afterwards, they all just started singing the Shinra Song again, with those huge blank smiles on their faces."

"Leon, please shut up," Yuna says, punching him in the arm.

You reach for the not-paopu stir fry and serve yourself some, hesitating for just a second before you eat it. It feels like you're doing something socially unacceptable and you're not even sure why. It's not like there's any magic happening here, if there ever was.

...It doesn't taste half bad.

But it doesn't taste right, either.

* * *

** **

"This city is pretty big, isn't it," you say, as the streets get emptier and emptier and the buildings become more and more run down. Your shoulders are aching a little from the weight of all the baskets you've been hauling this whole mile.

"Hmm, kinda," Aeris says. She's burdened by a lot less baskets than you, but she still seems to be leaning on her staff a lot. Maybe she really did throw her back out earlier, somehow. "Depends on your standards, I guess."

"Huh. Well, Destiny Islands wasn't exactly massive. What are your standards?"

"My standards are that I think there's a reason we call it Traverse Town and not Traverse City," Aeris says. "Still, though, I could see it being a little overwhelming if you're from somewhere less... hey, whoa, hang on a sec. Did you just say you're from Destiny Islands?"

"Yes?", you say. _ Unfortunately, _ you don't say.

"Wow. That sucks! I've watched TV from there before, it seemed like a cute place to live."

"You got our TV signals?" The worst possible news you could get about Destiny Islands public access TV is that it was being inflicted on _ even more worlds _ than your own. "Now I'm the one who's sorry. Nobody deserves to have to see something like that."

"To be honest, I don't remember most of it. I'm usually pretty busy. What's so bad about Destiny Islands TV?" You can't imagine Aeris is asking because she actually wants to know. Does she think giving you a chance to talk about your dead world is going to make you feel better, or something? You're not sure that would make sense even if you felt the way you were supposed to about it, and you don't.

...Well, whatever. Never let it be said that you don't enjoy complaining.

"_ Waves of Our Youth _ just comes across like... something a lunatic would hallucinate after drinking sea water, but with even more incest. And _ Dark Waters _ barely qualifies as horror. Like, I'm sorry, but I don't care whether you get our friend's dog dirty and put him in the shadows, it's still not going to freak me out. I'm not a _ squirrel. _ It actually worked better in the first season when they were using a stuffed wolf."

"What's up with Destiny Islands TV, anyway? It's all so... _ creative," _ Aeris says. "Yeah, I think creative is the right word. Is that just me, because I'm so used to everything being really... well... _ corporate, _ or is there something about Destiny Islands that made it be that way?"

"Okay, here's the thing," you say, dipping into some freshly-irrelevant local history. "Destiny Islands only had TV because a couple people who came from a world with good TV somehow managed to set things up so we could have the news and the weather. So we ended up with seven channels, and all of them were questionable at best."

"Oooh," Aeris says. "I can see how that would happen, sure."

"Anything people didn't bring from somewhere else had to be made by locals, and we didn't really have an entertainment industry, so everything was... extremely bad."

"So, you're telling me that _ anybody _ could be on TV were you were from?"

"If you put in the work to make something and you're immune enough to embarrassment that you're fine with everybody seeing it, and it's not any more fucked up than _ Waves of Our Youth," _ you say. For a second you're nervous about saying that, but who's going to yell at you, your Mom? Your Mom is dead.

You'd know. You killed her.

"Sooo..." Aeris says innocently. "Were _ you _ ever on TV?"

"...What makes you ask a question like that?", you say, and she immediately begins vibrating with excitement. You do not like where this is going, so you cut her off at the pass. "Have _ you _ever been on TV before?"

"I mean, for being a wanted criminal, sure, but not on a _ show! _ That's so cool!" You stare at her for a second, processing that, and then you sigh. Well, you guess now you _ have _ to tell her. It's the only way to properly show your respect.

"...I was on TV _ once," _ you grudgingly admit. "I tried to get out of it whenever possible, but there was one time everyone was doing a school play, and I couldn't convince anyone I was sick, and I couldn't get myself to throw up no matter how hard I tried. It was... you know. About the food groups and all that."

"The _ food groups?" _ , Aeris asks, her eyes and smile wide, like a predator getting ready to move in on a tender, terrified baby rabbit. "Wait a minute... _ wait a minute. _ Don't tell me you were in-"

"_ 'Food Rocks,'" _ you finish, shunting a couple of baskets up toward your elbows to free up your fingers to make quotation marks with them. "It was a bunch of songs from other worlds that were _ really _ obviously supposed to be about people having sex with each other, rewritten to loosely explain nutrition. I was a yogurt cup with a celery stick guitar."

"Oh my god, I always _ thought _ the yogurt looked like it didn't want to be there," Aeris says, her voice full of childlike wonder.

"Sora was a pineapple man, because that way he got to dance around. Kairi was a fish that sings about eating meat, although come to think of it I'm pretty sure Kairi doesn't even eat meat. They only picked her to be the fish because they were doing this weirdly ambitious thing where they lowered her from the ceiling, and none of the other girls our age wanted to risk it." To be fair, you wouldn't have risked it either, unless you were feeling really nihilistic that particular day.

"I can't believe this," Aeris says, shaking her head. "I can't believe I got to meet the yogurt cup from _ Food Rocks." _

"The only good thing about the end of the world is that _ Food Rocks _ died with it," you mutter bitterly.

"Oh no, it absolutely didn't," Aeris says. You stare at her in confused horror. "Everybody knows about _ Food Rocks, _ it became one of those so-bad-it's-good holiday specials for Rations Day. A lot of people taped it, and now they can air it whenever they want. People tape a lot of stuff here, actually, since you never know when it'll be gone. I'm sure Leon still has _ A Very Shinra Christmas _, even though I keep begging him to throw it away. I hate the part where an actress they paid to dress like me gets the firing squad."

"The teacher who wrote _ Food Rocks _ should get the firing squad," you say, making a mental note to eventually ask Aeris why she was executed in effigy in a Christmas special from her homeworld. "At least nobody can recognize any of us through those costumes." Rinoa had to fill in for a kid who was lucky enough to _ really _ be sick even though she was older, and you know she would've hated going down in history as a singing pita bread. Everyone was lip-syncing, so nobody even knew there was a girl in that costume.

You walk on, deeper into the empty parts of town, fuming a little while Aeris bubbles with excitement. She leads you in sneaking through a huge door into the abandoned districts proper.

"So, her name was Kairi?", Aeris asks casually.

But before you can even begin thinking how to answer, a series of torturous clicking and scraping sounds announces a small group of Heartless seething out of several abandoned buildings.

"Stay back," you say, surging a wave of painful black heat through your arm and forming the winged sword you used yesterday, immediately relieved that it worked. The cat woman yesterday called Aeris a 'white mage,' you think, and she's obviously powerful in that regard, but you have no idea if she's the kind of white mage that can actually fight.

You don't love the idea of fighting monsters, exactly, but you're in a bad mood and you want to see what this sword is capable of, so you know what? You'll take it.

You dash forward, heading straight for the closest Heartless, which in this case are a couple of those fat little shadows, and you're pleasantly surprised when your sword scythes clear through the first one's head with only a moderate amount of resistance.

There's something _ liberating _ about a fight where you don't have to hold back or feel guilty. You twirl your sword through the torso of a leaping Heartless, then drive it into a bigger armored one's torso. Before you can pull it free, another cluster of little shadows breaks off to rush you, and you incinerate them with a volley of dark fire from your free hand.

"Get some distance!", Aeris shouts. You hesitate for a second, but no, you can't think of any reasons she might benefit from screwing you over right now, so you turn and run back in her direction, hoping she has a plan or something. She's holding her staff in both hands, and it's shining with blisteringly bright light.

As soon as you're clear, she swings the staff in front of her, and a dozen or so ghostly white streaks split off from it, arcing away from one another to seek out different Heartless and bursting on impact. She must have cleared away at least nine of them with that one spell.

You turn back to check on her. She's staring at the open space where the Heartless used to be, her eyes wide and a little bit wild. If anything, she looks... kind of exhilarated. But the instant she notices you looking at her, her smile drops off her face, and now she just looks uncomfortable, and maybe a little embarrassed.

"...I haven't done that in a while, that's all," she says awkwardly. You shrug and survey the area; there are clearly more Heartless out there somewhere, but none of them seem to be interested in attacking you personally, at least not yet.

"So, I can see why this is the bad side of town," you say.

"Yeah," Aeris says, and starts walking again. You let her pass you by and then start following; you'd usually rather be in front, especially since you're the one with a sword, but you have no idea where you're actually going.

"...Well, at least it isn't me anymore," you say, very pointedly not thinking about Sora saying he was less mad at Ae... at Yuffie for robbing you, after finding out about the monster attacks.

"...Yeah," Aeris says again, quietly.

* * *

"Was that... all... of 'em?", you ask in between desperate breaths, bent over halfway forward, glancing around wildly.

"Sure was," Yuna says cheerfully. "Good work, Sora, seriously. You know, you really don't fight like it's your second day of having a real weapon."

"Thanks, but..." You sure don't fight like they do, either.

"Take the compliment, kid," Leon says. "Humility's all well and good, but you won't get anywhere if you always fight expecting to do poorly."

That's... actually really good advice, unless it's bad advice and you're just desperate for encouragement, which also seems possible. You've finally caught your breath enough to stand up all the way. A big feather drifts by on the wind.

"...Wait, where'd that come from," you say. Normally feathers aren't that, like... _ big. _ You look around, seeing nothing in particular. Then you look up.

"Well," Leon says. "That's a problem.."

High overheard, there's a _ huge _ bird-like thing circling the neighborhood. Another huge black feather drifts down from above, settling on the cobblestones and wisping away into smoke.

"Aw crap," Yuna says, sighing. "Yeah, okay, we need to deal with that. Sora, flying Heartless can be a real problem, especially here. The big ones sometimes go right over the district walls and cause a lot of damage."

"You're going to shoot it down, then?", Leon asks.

"This is a great place to do it," Yuna says. "There aren't too many houses in the square, at least. But I'm wondering if we want to get Sora out of here first."

"Uh... do you think it'd be too much for me?" You want to think the answer is no, because you'd feel really pathetic about it, but if they think so, they're probably on to something.

"...That's a good question," Leon says after a long pause. "Yuna and I can take it, so... tell you what, stick around for now, and if Yuna tells you to run, make a break for it and we'll keep the bird off you."

"Okay, yeah," you say, mostly because it's probably really important for the bird to go down away from houses or whatever and you wouldn't want to waste that chance, but also because you really want to be the kind of guy who doesn't back down.

"Alright then," Yuna says. "C'mon down here, big guy!"

She swaps to her half-skirt, aims both guns up into the twinkling night sky, and opens fire.

* * *

"Here you go," Aeris says to the giraffe, hanging the last basket on its lowered snout while you try to decide whether you're actually here in another world or if maybe, just maybe, this has all been a dying dream.

"Much obliged, Miss Gainsborough," the giraffe says. Its voice is old and deeply cultured.

"Any time," Aeris says, then turns to you. "She helps distribute supplies to the other residents."

"Great," you say. "That's great to hear."

Suddenly, you hear the distant sound of gunfire, followed by a horrible piercing scream from far overhead that echoes through the street and makes you ears ache. You look up, your sword manifesting in your hand instantly.

"Oh dear," the giraffe says. "That awful thing has been circling us for a while now. Thank goodness someone's come to deal with it."

Up in the sky and a few streets over, a gigantic black bird is now plummeting slowly to the ground.

"Is it the rude idiot with the gunblade and the girl with the fashion addiction?", you say. Aeris rolls her eyes.

"I imagine so. At least, it usually is," the giraffe says.

You look at Aeris. Aeris looks at you. You look at the giraffe, and then at Aeris again.

"...We could go help them," you offer.

"We _ could _ go help them," Aeris says.

So you do.

* * *

You watch from across the street as Sora and his new friends get ready to fight the giant bird. He looks nervous, at least when he has Sora's face, but you can't see what the other two are feeling through the masks they're both wearing.

It's a little scary, thinking about Sora fighting that thing, and you'd be lying if you said you weren't worried, but... you believe it'll be okay, because you believe in _ him. _ You can't tell if you think it's a good _ idea _ or not, but that's fine, because nobody asked you anyway.

_ ((((worried about what will happen to it // without the only creature that can see it // no doubt)))) _

...What _ would _ happen if Sora was gone? You hadn't even thought about that yet. And... you're not entirely sure why, but somehow you feel deep in the bones you don't have anymore that if Sora died, then you would die, too.

Isn't that at least a little bit comforting?

The bird comes slowly crashing down a street or two away. As it's falling, Riku and Aeris arrive out of nowhere; you wince a little watching the blood-red roots pulse and crawl through her stomach, and you try not to think too hard about Riku's body, the cracks running through him like he's a shattered porcelain doll that someone did a terrible job of gluing back together.

You can't really understand much of what anyone's saying, not without making yourself more real than you have the strength to support, but Riku and Aeris quickly pass around little charms that shimmer like black stars, and everyone starts tying them onto their wrists.

And then they all run off together, and the fighting starts.

You... don't really understand fighting, not on a detailed level, not like your friends all seemed to, so it's sort of hard for you to follow the battle. They all buzz around the bird while it lashes out in panicked fury. Aeris and Yuna unleash waves of magic, while Sora and Leon chase the bird all over the place and hit it a lot.

Riku seems to do whatever's most useful at the moment, which sometimes means using his sword and sometimes means throwing dark fire, but... you don't look at Riku any more often than you have to. His sword won't stop watching you, its leering, laughing eye rolling in its socket to follow you no matter where you go.

What would it be like if you could fight, too? You know a little bit of magic, at least, even if you mostly practiced when no one else was watching, sending out the light in ripples from your fingers, letting it glow under the water like hundreds of luminescent jellyfish, then shoot into the air and explode into fractal fireworks. If you did it on purpose, it wouldn’t happen accidentally anyway, but it was hard to keep trying when it felt like getting away with something you shouldn’t, like getting let off the leash for just a moment and doing anything other than staying put. 

And anyway, it was nothing like you used to do when you were little, before you knew any better. 

Eventually you get fed up with doing nothing and decide to try to call up a ball of light and see if that helps somehow, but... it just won't work, somehow. You've gone from being better at magic than anyone knew to not being able to do any at all.

_ ((((salvaged // perhaps // by less useless hands // or so we dare to hope)))) _

What else can you do to affect the battle, when you're capable of even less than you were when you had a real body?

Meanwhile, on the battlefield, Sora makes some small mistake you can't identify. The bird rushes in and nearly gets him, but Riku blocks the hit with his own body, sending him rolling painfully across the cobblestone road. Aeris turns to heal him, and in that moment you think the bird will just keep on going and tear out Sora's throat with its beak.

You yell, something wordless, full of an emotion that's completely unfamiliar, and the bird pauses, glancing in your direction...

...And then a flurry of bullets puts out its eyes, and Leon's gunblade shears off its head and three of its wings.

Did it really look away, or was it just trying to watch its own back? Did you help, or do you just want to pretend you're actually good for something?

_ ((((must it even ask)))) _

Riku is finally getting up, as Aeris pours healing light into him, and as the group clusters together to talk, you float closer and try your hardest to listen in. It... sort of works? You still can't seem to understand the words, but somewhere in the back of your mind you can feel the ideas being exchanged, the conclusions the speakers reach.

They're discussing Riku being useful, that he helped somehow with making those charms. Leon and Yuna grudgingly decide to tolerate letting him come on their next patrol. Riku can tell that Aeris was being a manipulative b... um, that she was being manipulative, but he seems to be grateful anyway.

...This is good, isn't it? You feel proud of Riku for being useful. Good job, Riku.

You just don't understand why you feel so weird.

After a while, the group turns around to go back to Cid's. You could follow them, but Sora's being unusually quiet, and the less that he's talking the more often you have to see his face from those strange angles where he looks like a completely different boy, with lighter hair and tired, forever-closed eyes.

So instead of following them home, you wander off by yourself. There are a lot of experiments you still want to do.

* * *

You've been doing a lot more lately than just floating around, is the thing. You've been testing things. You've been exploring. You've been _ learning. _

With this "body," there's below the surface and there's above the surface, although it's not exactly like that, either. Below the surface is like being underwater. The farther you get from yourself, the more insubstantial you are, the weaker you become, the harder it is to have a shape or even think.

You can push yourself _ above _ the surface sometimes, for a little while, but it's exhausting. The first time you did it you couldn't think or move for hours, and you had to find yourself all over again.

("Yourself" seems to mean wherever Sora is, although you have no idea why.)

Below the surface, _ no one _ can see you. Well, that's not true. The Fish and the man with the eyepatch could see you, and a weird shivery chill deep in your heart insists that the eye in Riku's sword could see you no matter what you were. But to everyone else, when you're below the surface, you're invisible.

When you make yourself float on the surface, though, you can somehow pull Sora out of his dreams and into your memories, or breach the surface to talk to him for a little while until you get tired. You tested it again today, and you can last a lot longer if you don't bother forming your body all the way, just sticking to the relevant parts instead.

...It only works with Sora, though. You don't know why it's like that, either. You couldn't talk to Riku, or any of the other people in the house. After a lot of effort, you managed to get Aeris to turn her head, but not in a way where she actually saw anything.

Is it bad if you're okay with that? There are only two people you'd really even _ want _ to see you, and right now one of them... well, maybe she's still out there somewhere in the universe, like everyone who's alive at the moment a world falls. You want to believe that.

Actually, you guess it's three people if you count Aqua, but you don't know where Aqua is, either. But it's hard for you to believe Aqua isn't alive. It's hard to believe anything out there could kill someone like her, although maybe you just remember her as being much tougher than she really is. You were just a little girl, after all.

...It's weird, the dull ache you feel thinking about her. It's surprisingly intense, and it isn't going away, even after hours have passed since you noticed it. You feel really weird, lately, in general.

Earlier, when you were watching TV with Sora, you felt... like it was the happiest you could ever possibly be, the happiest you'd ever been in your life, except you weren't even all that happy. You felt more alive than you can ever remember feeling before, even though there's a pretty strong argument to be made for you being dead right now.

You thought that was about talking to Sora, somehow, but... it wasn't. You still feel it, even now. Even through the pain of worrying about Aqua, and maybe even _ because _ of it. That dull ache is electric, somehow, sharp and bright and unignorable, and you never want it to go away again, even if it hurts until the end of time.

* * *

Anyway, you don't want to bother Sora while Riku is here, and you don't want Riku's sword to look at you anymore, so you go out to explore the town. You want to test whether this connection to Sora goes through walls, like the leash used to, or whether you have to be careful about that, too.

You go a long way, a whole district away, almost, to a place where a lot of the buildings seem older. You're doing a better job of staying lucid this time, mostly; you feel a lot more anchored, like finding yourself again that first time got you stuck in yourself somehow, and now you're more real when you're close to Sora, and less real when you're far from him.

Eventually, you come up to a huge, thick stone wall, which is actually exactly what you needed. It's very solid, so there isn't any way for you to squeeze through it, but that should make it more reliable for testing purposes anyway.

You follow the wall for quite a while, looking for a break in it somewhere so you can cross. The streets get emptier, and Sora gets farther away. You feel dizzy, a little bit... narrow. Stretched like a piece of gum, thinning out by the inch.

It's harder to hold your thoughts, keep them logical. Hard to think, without knowing who you are. You cling to one idea: follow the wall. Pass the wall. Be on the other side.

Time goes by, dragging past stone, and wood, and distance, and space. You're... going to a place, right? For a reason?

A hole in the wall. The wood kind of hole. A door, half-open. You wander in and turn around.

Follow the wall, the other way. The only idea you have room for.

...And eventually, there's room for more ideas again. You feel yourself coming into focus, a little bit at a time, like your whole self was a forgotten word on the tip of your tongue, and you've finally remembered what it was. You must be getting closer to Sora, then.

And that proves it, doesn't it? You can't pass through solid things, but your connection to him can. It was tough to get here, but this still counts as staying close enough to be real.

Huh, where are you, though? You've never seen this part of town before. It's even emptier than before, but... what's the word you're even looking for? Rotted? Degraded, maybe? It looks almost... frayed around the edges, somehow. Buildings are half-crumbled, and some of the streets have enormous dark fissures running through them.

You get the feeling no one lives here, not even poor people.

...Except you can hear voices, suddenly. As usual, you can't pick out the individual words, but there _ are _ people here, and they're having a heated conversation. You drift toward them, trying to figure out what could possibly bring someone all the way out here, to what feels like the edge of the world.

Oh! You've seen these two before, haven't you? The Duck and the Dog, who had one shadow too many. They're with a regular dog, too, poking around some kind of brightly-colored ship in an abandoned courtyard.

The Duck is angry about a problem their ship is having, and it seems like he might blame the Dog for it, or at least he's taking his frustration out on him. It's hard to be sure, when the Duck himself doesn't know, either.

The Dog doesn't seem too bothered, but he doesn't really try to defend himself. He just lets the Duck wear himself out, nodding every once in a while to seem involved in the conversation. You wonder what he's really thinking about; is he sad, or hurt, or annoyed, or is he in some other place entirely?

...There's something about their dynamic that's oddly nostalgic to you. It reminds you a little bit of the way you and Riku were, when you spent time around each other without Sora there to smooth things over. It makes you feel a little lonely to see it, and also a little uncomfortable.

Suddenly, the ground shakes. 

The Duck freaks out, running around in circles while the Dog fails to calm him down, and then a genuinely enormous monster lumbers through a nearby building, smashing it to bits. It's easily as big as CID'S REPAIRS, a huge clanking armored thing with nothing inside it, swinging its limbs around like a loose-jointed marionette on invisible strings.

The Duck starts to cast spells, barraging it with fire and ice and thunder, and the Dog does his best to draw its attention, soaking its massive blows with his shield, but there seems to only be so much they can do without support, and before long they're losing ground. The enormous Heartless spins around, its disembodied gauntlets flailing through the open air, and nearby buildings shatter into hundreds of pieces, some of the high-velocity shrapnel slamming into their ship and smashing it nearly in half.

The Duck is pinned down, now, under part of a collapsed building, and the Dog is desperately trying to draw the Heartless's attention away from him, and...

...And you have to do something, don't you?

_ ((((the rare moment of virtue // too little too late // as always)))) _

Except... there's nothing you _ can _ do, at least not if you're trying to help directly, so there's only one option. You have to find Sora, and you have to get help.

You know instinctively which direction to go, sailing down the winding streets until you run into that big, stupid wall again. This... could be a problem, but you'll try your best anyway.

The wall is just as long as it was before, and you're taken far, far out of your way trying to find your way back through. You stay close to the wall, pushing and pushing, trying to keep your mind clear.

You have to focus. Even as you get thinner, and weaker, and less. Have to reach the other side. Follow the cold stone. Wait for the wooden hole again. Slip through. Circle back. Wonder what you're doing, and why. Wish you were sleeping.

And then... you start to come back to yourself, retracing your steps as the gap between you and Sora diminishes. Wait... why were you looking for him, again? You could almost swear there was something important you had to do.

Maybe not, though. Maybe it's just that you're tired and lonely. Just because there's a nagging sense that you're forgetting something, it doesn't mean you actually are, right? Wouldn't you rather stop worrying about it and just... go back home and rest?

A few streets away from Sora, you pass by a girl and a Lion sitting together under a tree. It's nice, at least, to see that even in a place like this, people can still find things to be happy about. And... you're sort of relieved, after all these years, to be living somewhere with so many kinds of people again, even the four-legged kind.

Wait, what else has four legs? Lions, cats... dogs...

...The eyes you probably don't have snap wide open, and a second later you've forgotten all about the Lion in your sudden rush to get to Sora.

_ ((((imagine what it is // to hover so close to failure // at every moment // embarrassing)))) _

_ Be quiet, _ you think for no particular reason, _ I'm trying to think right now. _ And then you feel extremely silly, because it's not like somebody was talking to you, right?

There's hardly anyone here who can even _ see _ you.

* * *

** **

"Well, that sure was a day," Riku says, stretching and sitting down on his cot. You're in the workroom at CID'S REPAIRS, and thanks to Cid setting things up in here, neither of you even has to sleep on a couch tonight!

"Yeah! Oh man, I'm excited for you to come with us on patrol next time. I bet we'll make an awesome team!" It's kinda dumb, but after seeing Leon and Yuna fight together, you just keep thinking... how cool would it be if someday, you and Riku could be like that, too? You'd have your keyblade, and he'd have... whatever that thing is, and you'd cover each other's backs, and you'd be unbeatable.

"Yeah, maybe," Riku says. Then his eyes kinda narrow a little. "Sora, do you actually _ like _ any of these people? We could just leave."

"...Riku, come on," you say, kind of shocked, and honestly maybe a tiny bit hurt, although it's hard to be sure exactly why. "Don't be like that."

Riku sighs and looks you right in the eyes.

"I just... want to know if we're here because you _ want _ to be, or because we're worried about getting beaten up," he says. You're not actually sure how to respond to that, because you genuinely can't decide how much of a point he has.

"...I don't really know," you say eventually, looking down at your cot. "I'm pretty sure nobody would beat us up _ now _ if we tried to leave. Plus, we still need somewhere to stay. Somewhere like this garage!"

"I hate this garage," Riku says. "It's a garage. It smells like oil and broken dreams."

"I think it's pretty nice for a garage," you argue. "There are a bunch of cool plants in here, and there's a roof, and there are zero monsters."

"Sora, anything is good by your standards. You thought _ Food Rocks _ was a pretty great play. This is the _ Food Rocks _ of garages."

"_ Food Rocks _ does rock! The same way that food does!"

"You're really not helping your case," Riku says, rubbing at one of his temples.

"Come on," you say again. "You at least like Aeris, right?"

Riku stiffens, like you just caught him stealing cookies.

"...She's okay," he says carefully. "I _ guess." _

"I'm not asking if she's okay, I'm asking if you like her," you say. Your patience is really starting to run thin, here. And... then, suddenly, you wonder... _ does _ Riku like Aeris? Like, does he _ like _ Aeris? Is that why he's being cagey about this?

Or, you know, maybe you're a total jerk for immediately jumping to that after everything people did to you and Kairi. Besides, you kinda always thought Riku was gonna grow up to be one of those men who goes fishing all the time and never gets around to marrying anybody. Maybe he still will. You don't know.

"Aeris is twenty five years old," Leon says suddenly as he comes into the garage. "Kid." He's carrying a tray that's covered in...

"Whoa, food! That rocks!", you say. Leon raises an eyebrow, then shakes his head slightly and brings the tray over. "Thanks, Leon!"

You take a couple slices of some kind of ambiguously normal loaf and get to it immediately. Some of the spices are new, but...

"This just tastes like _ food," _ you say, wonder seeping into your voice. "Like, just real, regular food."

"Unlike some people, I don't make a habit out of watching cooking shows for space aliens," Leon says dryly.

"Riku, isn't this _ super good?" _, you ask, definitely not trying to lead him into doing a better job of having friends or anything.

"...It's edible," he says in between bites. You can tell he's talking with a little food still in his mouth, which definitely doesn't support his word choice, like, at all.

You know... Leon's still hanging around for now, and you aren't particularly worrying about trying to impress him at the moment. Maybe this is the right time to ask him about something that's been bothering you all day long.

"Hey, Leon," you say. "How much do you know about stuff that's happening in other worlds? Like, the news and whatever?"

"The rough details, some of the time," Leon says, shrugging slightly. "I don't follow it religiously. I've got enough problems in my own backyard."

"So... if Disney Kingdom was missing their king, would you know?", you ask. Riku looks up from his food loaf, confused. Right, he probably has no idea what you're talking about.

"...Yeah, they are," Leon says slowly. "Did you hear that somewhere?"

Suddenly, everybody's looking at you, and oh hey, you sure didn't think this through, did you? You panic a little and go for the first excuse you can think of.

"Uh... I woke up earlier than Riku, so I watched some TV, but I was super tired and I couldn't remember if it was a dream," you say. Riku's still staring at you, eyes narrowed like he's trying to figure you out, but he doesn't seem like he's going to challenge you on it, and Leon seems to be buying it.

"Is that why the TV was on The Mouseketeers when I woke up?", Riku mutters.

"Well, it probably wasn't a dream," Leon says, "Or if it was, it was a dream about something that really happened. There have been rumors for weeks now, and their queen gave a little speech about it just this morning. Talk about a holiday mood-killer for the Disney citizens."

"...Yeah, no kidding," you say, looking down at the floor. You feel... weirdly nervous all of a sudden. You're not sure if you're more afraid to believe it _ was _ real or that it _ wasn't _ real. Like you're standing right on the line between being a crazy person and being haunted.

"Sora, are you alright?" Riku says.

"Y-yeah," you say, "Of course I am."

"...No, screw that," Riku says. "Tell me what's wrong."

You have no idea what to do. Riku is staring at you expectantly, and Leon is doing a really bad job of pretending he's paying attention to something else, and...

...And your eyes go wide and your stomach leaps up into your throat, because all of a sudden Kairi is _ right there, _ standing behind Riku, looking _ right at you, _ and as if that's not shocking enough, she looks completely terrified.

"Sora, you have to hurry!", she says, panicking. "There's a Heartless attack, and... and if we don't do something, people are going to die!"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fun fact: Food Rocks was a real show at Disney's Epcot and you can watch a recording of it on Youtube if you want to host your very own Rations Day celebration. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=skrvRXJ5SDY


	6. It's Large And It's Here

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We've changed the tags for the fic a bit! We originally wanted it to be something of a surprise how the romance arc with Sora would develop, but we've ended up wanting it to play a more obvious role in the story, so we are now just leaving the fic tagged Soriku, which is where it's heading. We do want to take this moment to say that we very much want Kairi to feel like a genuine third protagonist, and later in the story (when it makes sense) she should have much, much, much more screen time, as well as her own romance arc that we're very excited about getting to somewhere down the line.
> 
> Also, we apologize for how long it took to get this chapter out! It was very dense even though it's shorter than the last couple of chapters and it took a lot of effort to push through it. We are aiming for our chapters to be shorter now, too; we think the previous lengths were correct for the start of the story, and there will probably be a few more chapters that size somewhere in the fic, but in general we want to aim for more of a 5k to 12k range instead of 10k to 16k. That will allow us to get chapters out faster and will probably be easier to digest for those among us who are a little less inclined to be long-winded. Expect chapter lengths to be a bit variable while we figure out what the best pace is.

Instead of answering you, Sora just stares off into the middle distance. For a second you almost think he's having a seizure or something, even though that doesn't particularly make sense. Then his eyes widen in confusion, and also what looks like horror.

"W... we have to go back out," Sora says suddenly, shaking his head. "We have to go right now!"

"Sora, what are you talking about?" This just went from weird to  _ too weird. _ You have no idea what's going on, but you know you don't like it one bit. "Why do we have to go somewhere, exactly?"

"Because... somebody's gonna..." He trails off, looking over your shoulder in a way that makes the hairs on the back of your neck stand up a little. You finally glance back behind you, half-expecting to see something bizarre there, but no, he's just staring at the empty air.

"You alright, kid? Maybe you should lie down for a minute," Leon says slowly, but Sora just shakes his head again.

"There's no time!", Sora says. "I just... Riku, just trust me, okay?"

"Sora, you're seriously freaking me out," you say. "Just calm down for a second and-"

But before you can finish talking, Sora leaps up off his cot and runs out of the room. A couple of seconds later, you hear the front door open and then slam shut behind him.

"Well  _ that's _ worrying," Leon says dryly. "You gonna let him just run off like that?"

"Of course not," you snap. You take a step toward the door, and then for some reason you hesitate. You glance back the empty garage space Sora was staring at.

Then you shake it off and get moving.

* * *

** **

"Alright, which way do we go, Kairi?" You don't see anybody getting murdered yet, but you're definitely still open to the possibility. "Uh... Kairi? You there?"

For one terrible, scary moment, you think she's just gone again. Then you catch sight of her halfway down a side street, waving frantically. She must just be planning on leading you that way, then.

You're almost caught up to the spot you last saw Kairi when you hear footsteps rapidly closing in from behind you, and by the time you turn around to look, Riku's already here. He skids to a stop, breathing a little bit heavily, and grabs you by the shoulders before you can run away again.

"Quit it, Riku!", you say, trying and failing to wrestle yourself away.

"Sora, who were you talking to?" You stop struggling for a second, and then when he lets his guard down you wrench out of his grasp all at once. "Sora!"

"I can't explain right now," you say, mostly because you get the feeling explaining wouldn't go over so well, at least before you have time to think of a good way to do it. "But there are people in danger! Riku, please just trust me on this. If I'm wrong, that'll be awesome and you can be mad at me, alright?"

Riku opens his mouth to argue. Then he closes it, slowly, like it's taking him a lot of effort, and sighs.

"...Alright, fine," he says. "But you have to explain this properly afterward."

Well, you have no idea how you're going to do  _ that, _ but you guess that's a problem for Future You to deal with.

"Okay, yeah," you say. "I will. Now can we go before somebody-"

"Huh. Didn't take long, did it? Goddamn kids these days don't even run properly." You crane your neck to see past Riku, and there's a whole little group of people following you. Leon, Yuna, even Cid, who's carrying some kind of spear that you've never seen him with before. Oh, and Aeris, although she's trailing a long way behind everybody else.

"Uh... why do you have a spear?", you ask. You're pretty sure you didn't explain what's going on to anybody but Riku.

"Because for some people, a keyblade wielder behaving erratically sets off alarm bells," Leon says. "Imagine that."

"This ain't the kinda town where it's wise to go wandering around alone," Cid says. "The last thing anybody needs is the one punk with a keyblade having a nervous breakdown and getting disemboweled in a back alley somewhere."

"Okay, well, nobody's having a nervous breakdown," you say, hoping it's true. This is really starting to get stupid, and you're finally started to get annoyed. "I just... I don't have time to explain this, okay? You don't have to trust me. Just... don't get in my way."

You turn around again and start moving. You can still see Kairi waving frantically in the distance; it's both a relief and really not a relief at all.

Nobody does get in your way, but they  _ do _ keep on following you. That's fine, though. If there really is trouble waiting for you, you won't mind having a bunch of armed adults around, that's for sure.

"...Hey, it's that dog," you say, breaking into a light run. The long yellow one that was bugging you the other day. As soon as he sees you he barks loudly and then bolts in the opposite direction, the same way Kairi's been leading you, pausing every so often to run around in circles while you catch up.

You follow Kairi and the dog around one of the medium-big walls that divides up different parts of one district, out into a really deserted area... and then you go farther, and farther, until the town starts getting kinda, like, messed up.

There are huge fissures in the ground, and some of the buildings here look like they just... crumbled, for totally unclear reasons, and it's been a while since you saw any people, even homeless ones.

A couple streets away, something crashes enormously loud, and you can actually see bits of wood and stone fly up into the air above the roofs of some nearby buildings.

"If there  _ are _ Heartless out here, why aren't the sirens going off?", Riku asks from somewhere behind you.

"We don't have working sensors out this far," Yuna answers. "They get erased more often than not when the edges of the town shrink, so it's not worth the expense."

"When the edges of the town  _ what?", _ Riku asks, but before she can answer him, you all round the last corner one by one.

The abandoned square sort of area you find yourself in is completely trashed. There are whole buildings that have just been smashed into pieces, cobblestones ripped out of the ground and scattered all over the place, piles of broken glass glittering in the starlight.

"Hang in there, Donald!", somebody yells, and you realize you're definitely not the first ones on the scene. There's a... uh, you think a dog person, maybe, but it's hard to tell - he's wearing some light armor and carrying a big shield with no weapon, throwing cobblestones at one of the ruined buildings...

...Which basically just  _ explodes _ a second later, as the biggest Heartless you've seen in days comes crashing into the scene. It's enormous, taller than most of the houses around here, although nowhere near as huge as those things you saw out in the water when Destiny Islands fell. It looks like an empty suit of armor, or rather  _ most _ of one; it's just two enormous metal boots, two enormous metal gauntlets, and a single torso-and-head piece, all disconnected and slightly levitating.

Now that the building's out of the way, you can see into a neighboring area where there's even more destruction, and... whoa, is that a  _ person _ way over there, trapped under some rubble? It is! It's a duck man (or duck woman?), either unconscious, dead, or just generally not doing well.

"Well, that's not great," Leon says.

"Guys, there's somebody pinned under a bunch of crap over there!", you shout, pointing past the Heartless, which is now raining its massive fists down on the street one after the other. You can actually feel the town shaking underneath you.

"...Aeris, you heal the Duck," Yuna says, shifting into her white robes. "I'll get its attention." Leon nods and steps in between her and the Heartless, his gunblade at the ready, and Cid joins him a couple seconds later.

"Uh, Riku, let's go with Aeris," you say. Just sending one person off like that seems super risky, and you're not sure you're on board with it. "We'll make sure it stays off her. And I guess keep watch, in case there's more?"

"Good thinking," Yuna says, although you weren't really talking to her.

"Okay," Riku says. He summons his weird sword in a burst of dark fire, wincing a little. Does it...  _ hurt _ to do that? "Let's do this."

You wish you could have a second to  _ prepare, _ but you guess that's just not how combat works, because Yuna wastes no time lobbing bright spheres of silvery-white light at the huge Heartless. They detonate like bombs on contact, throwing it off balance for a second, but you can't tell if any actual damage was caused. It teeters, then swivels around eerily, its empty steel face staring right at her.

The way it moves is beyond weird. It's like every piece of it is dangling from something and being swung clumsily around with what looks like an incredible amount of force.

Yuna nails it with another cluster of weird light-bombs, and it finally goes for her, clomping forward one bizarre foot at a time, its other body parts lagging a little behind so the whole monster is slanted backwards.

"Alright, let's go," you say, and you and Riku stay in between Aeris and the Heartless as she crosses the street. You... kinda wish she wasn't so  _ slow, _ though.

Meanwhile, Yuna keeps on casting spells, and Cid and Leon go on the offensive. You're a little surprised Cid's moving around so effectively - maybe he's not as out of shape as he acts, or maybe he just doesn't care if he hurts himself?

He launches himself into the air somehow like he was standing on a giant spring. Leon charges in immediately, swinging and shooting his gunblade at one of the feet, but even using a shell only seems to be enough to scratch its armor, and its other foot swings around like a wrecking ball and crashes right into him, hurling him fifteen feet down the street.

Cid suddenly falls out of the sky like a meteor, driving his spear into the Heartless's helmet-face from above; there's a horrible scraping noise and a shower of sparks, but you don't see any evidence that it actually worked. He springs away again, landing in a crouch on the ground back where he started. Now he's the only person standing between the Heartless and Yuna.

You and Riku and Aeris finally make it over to the duck, and she gets down on her knees next to him right away; you guess he's alive after all, or else you don't think she'd bother pouring that much healing light into him.

"We've got company," Riku says, audibly tense. Sure enough, there are a bunch more Heartless coming, little shadows and Soldiers and weird colorful floating lanterns streaming in from the far end of the street.

There's hardly any time for strategy; they're on you quick, swarming and clawing and maybe even biting, the lanterns lobbing spikes of ice and streaking embers. You weave between the projectiles the best you can, a few of them grazing you as you strike down the small Heartless one after another. Riku's picking off some of the lanterns with his dark fire, but before long he's forced into melee along with you.

Some of the Heartless start to slip by, despite your best attempts to stop them, and you're about to yell to Aeris and tell her to run... but the dog man re-emerges from wherever he must have gotten off to, pounding the strays into nothingness with his shield. He takes down several of them almost instantly, but he's obviously not going to hold out for long, at least not without letting any escape.

"Aeris, how's the healing?", Riku yells back, skewering two of the shadows with one lunging thrust and then shooting down another of the blue lanterns.

"He's in rough shape, but it shouldn't be long," Aeris says, wiping sweat off her forehead. You wonder what it feels like to use magic like that - does it actually strain your muscles, somehow, or does it wear you out in some weirder, more abstract way?

There's a brief lull in the fighting as some of the Heartless regroup and you're able to spare a moment to check on the rest of your friends. Yuna's changed into her guns outfit and is dodging out of the way of repeated massive attacks while Cid chips off tiny little bits of armor every time there's an opening. The hit Leon took must've been pretty bad, because he's only just starting to pick himself up off the street, and it's slow going.

The Heartless is starting to herd Yuna in Leon's direction, actually, although who knows if that's intentional or just a coincidence, and... you're not sure how much longer she can dodge it, at least before one of its stray blows crushes Leon into paste.

You can't think of anything smart to do that could help, so you just let your instincts take over and do something dumb instead, stretching your arm back all the way and chucking the keyblade at it as hard as you can.

It sails through the air, twirling like a buzzsaw, and you're honestly a little surprised when it doesn't miss, and a lot more surprised when it cuts a pretty noticeable wedge of armor out of the Heartless's big metal torso.

...And it keeps going, in fact, arcing around like a boomerang. You definitely didn't do  _ that _ on purpose. A second or two later the keyblade is soaring back toward  _ you, _ and you reach out to catch it reflexively... and you actually  _ do. _ It doesn't even feel all that hard. It's like you just knew, somehow, exactly how to time your grab and exactly what angle to keep your hand at.

"That's so  _ cool," _ you whisper. Then the Heartless swivels around and one of those enormous fists sails directly toward your face. You bring the keyblade up, almost in slow motion, and the fist crashes into it like a rolling boulder. The keyblade absorbs an honestly bizarre amount of force, but you can still feel the hit reverberate through every one of you bones, and it sends you sliding back a good five feet, stumbling and barely staying upright.

"I'm going to help Sora!", you hear Riku say somewhere behind you.

"Okay, do it," Aeris says.

You finally get your footing again after almost tripping on a bunch of smashed cobblestones, just in time to see the Heartless winding up for another hit. Its hands start to swivel around it, spinning faster and faster like an insane out-of-control kid's toy, and it charges forward like an iron tornado.

Riku lunges in front of you all of a sudden, shoving you hard out of the way. He doesn't block, though. Instead, he grips his bat-sword with both hands, slashing viciously forward so it's on a collision course with the Heartless's gauntlet. There's a dark flash and a flash of bright sparks, and the Heartless's fist and Riku both go flying in opposite directions. He's lucky enough to land on a patch of grass, though, and he's back on his feet again a few seconds later.

You stare at the giant Heartless, kinda impressed, and... yep. There's a cut almost halfway through one of its fingers. That's definitely the most damage anybody's attack has done, other than your keyblade throw, which for sure edged it out at least a little bit.

"Donald, you're okay!" You don't recognize that voice much at all, so... the dog man, you guess? You glance back and yep, the duck man is on his feet, clutching a really ornate staff. So his name is... Donald? That's a disturbingly normal name for, like, a duck man.

Well, you maybe can stop worrying about Aeris, at least. She's free to move around again, and the duck man immediately gets to work just absolutely  _ slaughtering _ groups of little Heartless with a constant stream of different kinds of magic. The dog man, meanwhile, takes his shield and does his best to protect Aeris and the duck man.

So, you should probably help out with the giant suit of armor, right? Even though it's like fighting a couple of flying trains that hate you? The others aren't making a lot of progress, although its various body parts are slowly becoming more and more scratched, dented, and scorched.

Leon is finally standing again, which actually seems like a worryingly slow recovery, and he only makes it a couple of steps before clutching at the side of his ribcage and stumbling against a nearby tree. Yuna sprints over to him in her guns outfit and then changes into the robes, which seem to give her the ability to heal people.

"Okay, everybody!", Yuna yells at the top of her lungs. "This thing is a real problem! Everyone focus on the same part, it's the only chance we have to do any real damage! We're starting with the left foot!"

She finishes healing Leon surprisingly fast, so maybe he just had a cracked rib or something, as opposed to the duck, who you kinda think shouldn't be alive. Then she switches her outfit back to the guns one, and fires a volley of weird glowing bullets that seem to eat away at its armor a lot more effectively than the regular ones did, although that's a pretty low bar.

Leon and Cid close in on the Heartless as soon as Yuna switches to another outfit, filling the gaps in Yuna's gunfire by striking at the same points she weakened, over and over. She's only in the witch hat for a second before changing back, though. Is she abusing that to reload her guns with magic somehow?

Either way, it's... well, it isn't  _ not _ working, but saying it  _ is _ working seems overly dramatic.

The Heartless doesn't seem to like it much; it swivels more to face Yuna and her group, and launches both of its fists at Leon like projectiles... but halfway there, they actually swerve in mid-air, heading for Yuna instead. She reacts fast, but not fast enough, and just before they connect, Cid shoves her out of the way. One of the fists hits him dead center, hurling him halfway down the street, his spear clattering across the cobblestones.

Yuna curses, chasing after Cid and changing back into the healing robes, but the instant her mobility dips again, the Heartless throws out its fists again one after another. She still manages to roll away from the first one, somehow, but the second dips downward and crushes a huge dent into the street in front of her, and the impact launches her away like a rag doll. Her body smashes into a nearby house, shattering several windows on impact, and she collapses face first into a patch of dead grass.

Leon shouts something unintelligible, charging at the Heartless from behind, but it barely seems to care. Yuna, meanwhile, is somehow struggling back up onto her knees, which didn't really even occur to you as a possibility after that hit. She switches back to her guns and resumes shooting, but she's obviously disoriented and battered, bleeding from a bunch of places, and you're not sure she can actually stand up the rest of the way.

"Cover me!", Aeris yells from somewhere outside your field of view. Oh yeah... isn't she the only other person here who can do healing? She runs off toward Yuna, leaving the dog man and the duck named Donald and also Riku to continue holding off the smaller Heartless, which you suddenly realize they've been doing  _ really well _ at, like, so well you almost forgot that was even happening.

Leon, meanwhile, is still darting around the Heartless, raining hits down on the foot that seems injured-ish, the armor slowly warping more and more visibly; the Heartless doesn't seem to be able to decide whether to swat him or finish off Yuna, and that buys everybody just a little bit more time.

"Riku, come on!", you shout. "While it's distracted!" It seems basically true that most of the people here are better and cooler than you, but your keyblade is  _ really _ effective against that armor, and for some reason Riku's spooky sword is pretty good, too, so maybe you'd better get in there and start contributing, even if you  _ do _ hate the idea of dying horribly.

Both of you get there pretty quickly - more quickly than you really wanted to, honestly, you would've loved a little bit more time to spend being alive - and you guess all there is to do for now is attack that stupid foot before it kicks anyone else. You wait for a second or so, until it's distracted trying to hit Leon, and then lunge in, swiping with your keyblade at the spot Leon and Yuna have been focused on.

Your swings carve a sparking cross into the metal that must go at least six inches deep; it groans horribly, like it's going to collapse under its own weight, even though that doesn't really make sense. You leap away as the foot jitters wildly, trying to get some distance again in your panic, and Riku charges forward in your place.

He plunges his bat sword right into the center of the cross-shaped scar, pushing with both hands and driving it in almost up to the hilt, then yanks it back out and stumbles away. The Heartless rears its torso back up toward the sky and lets out a bizarre, enormous, metallic roar, and the foot suddenly buckles inward, warping and stretching.

It shrinks, almost, twisting up into knots of shredded metal, spraying hot sparks all over the place and igniting a couple of stray twigs in the street. It compresses itself inward into a strange pitch-black point, and then it's just... gone. It's gone, and the Heartless is made of four pieces now instead of five.

A couple of people cheer. The Heartless hovers there for a second, as if it can't believe what just happened... and turns back to Riku, releasing another ear-crushing roar. This one goes on for even longer, to the point that your head's starting to ache, and you could almost swear its golden eyes are brighter now, like it's lit up with rage.

"Riku, c'mon," you say, because he's just staring at it in horror for some reason. "Time to move."

"You started it," he says. For a second you're not even sure who he's talking to, but... maybe it's the Heartless? "You don't have the right to complain that somebody fought back!"

"I don't think it talks, Riku," you say nervously. But he doesn't even seem to hear you.

The Heartless's fists suddenly start to spin, twirling until they're blurry around the edges. Its remaining foot rises up into the air until all three limbs are lined up horizontally, spinning furiously, and then they start to orbit its body in widening circles in two directions. Its torso floats down lower toward the ground, and it starts to advance, whirling like an enormous carnival ride, except instead of being fun, this carnival ride just extremely kills you.

And Riku is still frozen, watching it twirl inevitably toward him.

You don't have time to think. You just act, lunging at Riku and pushing him down onto the ground, hoping if you both stay really low then maybe it'll sail right over you instead of crushing you into smears of light.

The noise is deafening as it starts to pass overheard, like what you'd imagine being caught in a tornado might be like, and you can feel your clothes and hair billowing from the displaced air. You're squished down flat on top of Riku, staring right into his wide, terrified eyes from an inch or two away, and you wonder if you're going to die like this. You wonder if he's wondering that, too. You wish it wasn't so loud right now, because you want to say something comforting, but you don't think he'd be able to hear it.

Then the noise and the wind fades as the Heartless finally moves away, and you push yourself back up off of Riku awkwardly, suddenly having trouble looking him in the face.

"Wow, I definitely thought I was gonna die," you say distantly.

Then there's an enormous crash and the street shakes violently, almost knocking you over. Your head snaps up just in time to see the giant Heartless floating through a building-sized hole it just smashed through the way.

"Wait, isn't that the direction there are more people in?", you ask, just as Yuna yells out "It's headed for the town! We have to slow it down somehow!" At least she sounds less almost dead now? You take a moment to check, and at some point Aeris got there. Wow, you would all be so screwed if you didn't have anybody around who could heal! This is crazy!

"Let's move, people! Go, go!" Leon leads the chase, and the whole group haphazardly rushes to catch up. It doesn't take long before you start hearing screams in the distance, and the Heartless warning siren starts. You're also followed almost immediately by another rush of smaller Heartless, which is going to make things a  _ lot _ worse.

"Gawrsh, maybe we can push it back through the hole!", the dog man says. You had kinda already forgotten he was here. He and Cid and Leon get to work on that, trying to slowly hammer the giant Heartless back, but it's still really big and really angry, and you're not sure how realistic that plan actually is.

Yuna and the duck named Donald are hard at work trying to thin out the rising swarm of normal-sized Heartless. A couple of seconds later, Aeris catches up to the group and joins in, barraging them with homing streaks of light. That's going a lot better than the Push Back The Giant Monster plan, but it might not be going well enough.

...It's especially not going well enough when you consider that the giant Heartless is acting pretty crazy ever since its foot imploded. Its attacks are starting to be really wild and unpredictable, and its movements seem even less human than before. Fighting it only seems to get tougher, especially now that it matters whether or not it's destroying buildings and the smaller Heartless aren't really being kept to a separate battle.

"Riku, come on," you say, a really bad idea surging up in your brain. He glances over in between throwing dark fire around. "We're gonna make the big one chase us and lure it off that way, farther away from people." You point off down an abandoned side street; some of those are probably people's houses, still, but it's clear everyone's deserted the area, so at least you know nobody will get killed.

"That sounds pretty bad, actually," Riku says.

"I know, but it's important! They can't keep up with the rest of the Heartless if that big one's always two seconds away from squishing somebody." You do your best to sound like you know what you're talking about. Riku sighs, smiling a little bit ruefully.

"...If I don't come, you'll just do it by yourself, won't you," he says, and you shrug. "Alright, then. Guess I've got no choice."

_ "Hey guys!", _ you yell back over your shoulder.  _ "We're leading it that way! Hold these ones off for us!" _ And before anybody has a chance to argue, you hurl your keyblade at the huge Heartless again, slicing a wedge of armor out of its back. You're kind of afraid you won't catch it when it returns this time... but no, your body somehow knows just what to do.

The Heartless turns to face you right away... or does it? You'd almost swear that it's paying more attention to Riku, but that doesn't make a ton of sense. Well, whoever it's focused on, it doesn't waste any time hovering toward you, so you turn and start running, trusting Riku to follow along.

"W... wait, I'm coming with you!" You slow down just a little, looking over your shoulder. Aeris is jogging along behind Riku, not quite running, a very determined and maybe a tiny bit pained look on her face. "You can't just take risks like that without a healer around, alright?"

"...Okay, thanks!", you say. Actually that's kind of a big relief! There's no room for screw-ups with this thing, one hit and anybody here would be finished without healing, or at least they'd be taken out of the fight.

"Then I'm coming too, goddammit," Cid yells suddenly, breaking away from a pack of the fat little shadows he was carving up. "You're gonna get yourself hurt, you know that, idiot?"

"I'll be fine," Aeris says tersely. "It's not your problem." You feel like you're missing something, here, but the giant Heartless is following fast, and you don't really even have time to make sure Cid is actually keeping up and not being murdered, let alone sort through somebody else's weird personal issues.

_ "Aeris," _ Leon yells, almost at the edge of hearing,  _ "Take it to District Six! The abandoned square with the broken fish statue! We'll meet you there!" _

And then his voice fades away, and you're left with just the echoing sounds of battle in the distance, rapid footsteps on stone, and a vibrating iron roar that's getting closer by the second.

"I'll... I'll lead the way," Aeris says, even though she's obviously breathing hard already. "You two don't... know your way around... right?"

"Uh, I guess not!", you call back, slowing down enough to let her eventually pass you, but hopefully not enough to get mulched by a giant suit of armor. She does, finally, running faster than you've ever seen her before, and... wait, is she casting some kind of healing spell on herself with her free hand while she goes? Did she get hurt while you weren't looking?

"About... halfway... there," she pants after a short while... and then loses her balance somehow, crashing hard into the cobblestones. You rush over, so maybe you can help her up or something, but she's just... writhing on the ground, making some really awful noises and clutching at her stomach.

"Are you okay?!", you ask. You have no idea what to do here, like, at all.

"I'm... f...fine," she spits out through gritted teeth. The hand clutching her middle pulses even brighter with healing light, and she slowly struggles back to her feet, and then just starts running again, although a lot slower this time. Somewhere along the way the giant Heartless started getting caught on buildings, at least, so you've built up enough of a lead now that it might not be a problem?

A house barely twenty feet behind you detonates into a spray of splinters and dust and glass. You look back over your shoulder frantically, and the Heartless has started throwing its fists out really worryingly far, as if to specifically make you look dumb for thinking something might actually be going well.

"We have to slow it down!", you yell. "Take turns fighting and running so it doesn't run us down from behind!"

"How about we get to work on one of those piece of shit hands? Limit its options a bit," Cid suggests.

"Yeah, do that! Focus on... uhh... the left hand, I guess!" It probably doesn't matter which hand you pick, so you'd rather just make the call right now, so nobody wastes time splitting up their attacks.

"Wait, whose left? My left or its left?", Riku asks.

"I... come on, man! Yours, I guess, I don't care, just pick one!"

The next few minutes all blur together into a big swirl of running, fighting, and panic. You take short shifts running and fighting, everybody chipping away at the hand's armor painfully slowly while this half-abandoned town crumbles around you.

Then, suddenly and without any real warning, the Heartless roars again, and its gauntlet-hands start to warp and bend with a horrible screech that sounds a lot like when the foot imploded... except nothing implodes, this time. Instead, strips of metal peel away from the backs of all its fingers, twisting themselves into long, weird, jagged claws.

...As if dodging giant flying hands wasn't hard  _ enough. _

"Be careful!", you shout out nervously. "Try to hit it from far away, I guess! Don't risk getting close to those things!" They look like they could split a person into a couple pieces pretty much effortlessly, and you really don't want to find out if that's true.

The horrible claws swipe outward, covering huge swaths of street with every attack. Aeris casts off a long string of small light spells, streaking through the air like silver fireworks. Riku barrages it with dark fire over and over until he's wincing with every shot. Cid baits it into attacking him before springing out of the way, hammering blows against the spots everyone else weakens. You get into a rhythm of throwing your keyblade and then catching it again while you sprint away.

And like that, you lead the Heartless down street after street, eating away at its armor frustratingly slowly, feeling like a failure every time it smashes in a rooftop, snaps a tree in half, or tears up a patch of cobblestones.

...This really isn't working nearly as well as you hoped it would. Are you doing something wrong here, or are the hands just a lot tougher to destroy than the feet? You can  _ see _ the armor thinning out, but it still hasn't imploded or whatever, and it's hard to say whether you're actually getting close to that or not.

You know what? This is dumb. Somebody has to do something drastic. So you bide your time a little, let it pay more attention to Riku and Cid... and then, the first opening you get, you leap in with your keyblade at the ready, going for a big stab that you hope might crack it clear open like Riku's did earlier.

Except it doesn't, because you don't even land the hit. As if it was planning for this all along, the Heartless spins its wounded hand out of the way, and then just as abruptly it pulls its other one out of a dive toward Cid and brings it around in your direction, cutting parallel lines in the street as it rotates diagonally.

"Sora, watch it!" Riku shoulder-checks you out of the way at the last second, absorbing most of the hit with his wing-sword, but the claws are so long that they slip right past it, tearing a couple of long lines into his shirt. He cries out in pain and falls over backward, landing on his butt, but at least it wasn't fatal.

...But its remaining foot suddenly jets up off the ground, circling up and around like a ball on the end of a chain, whipping down with enormous force to smash him into the cobblestones. 

You lunge in without thinking, grabbing Riku's shirt and pulling him away with more strength than you even knew you had, and the foot doesn't quite hit you, but its impact on the street in front of you catches you in a wave of stone shrapnel and throws you into a brutal, dizzying roll.

Slowly, you pick yourself up, your head and like half of your bones throbbing. Cid's trying to draw the Heartless away from you, and Aeris is running over to Riku. As soon as she gets to him she starts to build up healing light... and that stupid foot slings itself back all over again while the claws hold Cid off. It slams right into Aeris's middle, knocking her staff out of her hand and throwing her halfway down the street.

She tries to get up, but barely even makes it to her knees before doubling over and collapsing back onto the cold stones.

(Why do they have to be 'cold,' though? Why notice that? Why does the whole world feel so hostile right now?)

"Hold the goddamn thing off!", Cid yells, dropping everything to get to Aeris as fast as he possibly can, even ducking down to grab her staff on the way. You're finally feeling stable enough to stand and maybe even fight again, and it looks like Riku's recovered too, although he's obviously really shaken from the hit he took.

"Let's do it, Riku," you say, mostly because it seems like maybe he could use some encouragement. He nods a little bit hesitantly... then again, more confidently. Yeah, that's the Riku you know.

You throw your keyblade again, hoping Riku will cover you if you get attacked while it's gone... and you do, and he does, slashing away an incoming fist hard enough that he's still bowled over by it somehow. Cid, meanwhile, is trying to help Aeris up.

"I... I'm okay," she mumbles, not sounding even a little bit okay. "I can... stand..."

"The hell you can," Cid says, and unceremoniously hoists her up over his shoulder like a sack of injured magic potatoes. "Guess now you'll have to be artillery, huh?" Aeris laughs, although it sounds kinda forced.

"Uh, okay, great," you say loudly. "Then let's get moving again! Riku, help me cover them!"

And then you're all basically running away again. Cid's carrying Aeris, although who knows how long he can keep that up for, and you and Riku zig-zag along the street behind them, trying to keep its attention and chip away at it a little. Now that Aeris doesn't have to move on her own, she seems to be doing better at charging up bigger spells, lobbing big balls of explosive light and volleys of homing rays.

Keeping them covered is actually super hard, though. It's become even more important to make sure no attacks get through, so you have to keep taking bigger and bigger personal risks, being overly aggressive to keep it focused on the two of you, and also stuff like blocking attacks you definitely would've rather just run from.

The Heartless still seems to be getting steadily madder and crazier, too. Its movements have long since stopped resembling anything that's affected by gravity or physics, and it launches out its limbs one after another. It's pretty much relentless.

"Sora, the foot!", Riku says suddenly while you're ducking a terrifying claw swipe. "I think our counter-attacks are working. It's definitely weaker than the hands are! Aeris, start shooting the foot, I think we've almost got it!"

She does, hitting it again and again with pinpoint streaks of light, and the thick layers of armor are finally whittled down almost to nothing in a couple spots. That same nightmarish grinding, scraping creak rips through the night air as the armor warps and ties itself into weird knots, sparks and bits of molten metal showering down over everything around, and then, just like the other foot, it suddenly just doesn't exist anymore.

The Heartless roars, and it almost seems to be in pain or something, its arms flailing wildly in no particular direction while its torso and head slump sideways at a weird angle.

"Everybody get over here," Aeris says urgently. "I want to heal us all before it's moving around again!" That sounds great actually, considering how ridiculously battered you're all getting.

"So, does healing have to be point blank? I've never really understood that," Riku asks as everyone clusters tight around Aeris, who's pulsing bright waves of green light from her staff.

"Sort of," she says. "It's possible from a distance, but it takes a lot more energy to send it through empty space, and it doesn't work as well. Usually it's just not worth it."

"Huh, weird. I wonder why healing magic is so different," Riku says, his brow furrowed. Aeris just shrugs.

"I'm sure somebody knows," she says. "I'm more concerned with making it work than-"

And something hits you in the back like a wrecking ball, and suddenly the night sky is underneath you instead of over your head and the clouds are made of cobblestones.

You turn your head dizzily, just in time to see

* * *

One second, Sora's standing next to you while Aeris heals everyone, and the next second there's a rush of wind and he's not. There's a terrible  _ thump _ off in the distance; when you turn to look, still confused, you watch as Sora collapses onto the street a good forty feet away, directly in front of a crumbling brick wall with a massive dent freshly smashed into it.

"Riku, stop it!", somebody says, but you're already running fast enough that you barely process it.

He's not dead. He's like you, he's made of light, so if he was dead he wouldn't be there anymore, and he's still there, so he can't be dead, no matter how limp and twisted and still he is right now. You can hear the others yelling about something way behind you, but it's irrelevant. He definitely isn't dead.

"Sora, get up," you say urgently when you finally reach him, but he doesn't. You get down on your knees next to him, grabbing his limp shoulder and shaking him. "Come on, get up already!"

Nothing is obviously wrong with him, except that he's not moving at all, and he's not responding even a little bit. You shake him harder.

"If you don't get up right now, I'll... I'll ask Kairi on a date! And I'll tell everyone you're gay!" He still doesn't respond. You consider smacking him around a little, but for all you know that'll be the straw that breaks the camel's back, and he'll just scatter into light as soon as his body registers the impact. It's not like there's any clear way to tell how close he really is to the edge.

What do you do? What  _ can _ you do? What can anybody do?

Wait... Couldn't Aeris do something? Isn't that, like... her whole deal? Aeris exists, and she could fix this, she could make him move and talk and laugh and be annoyed at you again... but when you look up to try to figure out where she even is now, she and Cid have already started luring the Heartless away again.

Maybe they just couldn't hold it off on their own, and this isn't any kind of horrible betrayal, but it still sort of makes you want to hit somebody in the face.

The Heartless, meanwhile, suddenly loses interest in Aeris and Cid, turning toward you again, and you can feel its huge lantern eyes boring through you as it roars.

**[TAKE WHAT IT LOVES]** , the head is screaming in a voice like a collapsing skyscraper.

**[AVENGE THEM]** , the mostly-undamaged hand offers, like nails screeching against a steel plate.

**[MAKE IT SUFFER]** , the badly-wounded hand rages, like the underside of a ship crashing into a boulder deep underwater.

Perfect! Great!  _ That's _ exactly what you needed right now!

You try to hook your arms under Sora's body and hoist him up, because it's suddenly become  _ really _ important that you're anywhere other than right here, but he's heavier and floppier than he looks and by the time you're standing up sort-of-carrying him, you're pretty much pinned in this corner near the broken wall while the Heartless floats toward you, almost smugly.

"We have to get it away from Sora!", Aeris yells, you suppose because she's the only other person here with a reasonable sense of priorities. But before either of them can do anything, the Heartless fires off both its fists at you. You manage to throw your body out of the way, somehow, but you lose your grip on Sora in the process, and both of you go tumbling back down into the street.

Cid chucks his spear at the Heartless from behind, but it doesn't really accomplish anything. You slowly drag yourself back to your feet; this fight is really pushing you to your limit, or really if you're being honest with yourself it's pushed you way  _ beyond _ your limit and you have no idea how you're still moving at all.

Aeris finally lobs a huge ball of sizzling light at the Heartless, which might actually do something... except just before it would've hit, the bottom of the torso suddenly rotates forward and up, pivoting with just the head staying in place until it's completely upside down. You had no idea it was even capable of moving that way.

...And Aeris's spell is still coming, arcing down toward you. You can't really block it, since you have no idea if it's going to explode or not, and if you dodge out of the way then it'll just hit Sora, who really can't afford to take any more punishment right now.

"Get out of the way!", Aeris yells. Her stupid light orb is ponderous enough that you have several long, stretched out seconds to wonder whether you're being an idiot or not.

Then it slams right into your chest, and it absolutely does explode. Everything goes white for a split second, and your whole body burns like you just got dunked into some kind of acid. It hurts so much that you barely feel yourself slamming into the cobblestones and rolling away. It might actually hurt worse than anything has ever hurt in your whole life.

But... you don't have time to lay around moaning, so you drag yourself up onto your knees again, even though you can barely feel the ground underneath you and it's taking all your willpower not to pass out.

It looks like Cid and Aeris are both packing, although honestly it's hard to be sure when your eyes are blurry with tears. Cid is starting to take some really stupid risks to get more hits in, although none of them are really causing damage even now, and Aeris is frantically firing off rays of light, but she's obviously so afraid of accidentally hitting you again that she's not really landing her spells in any vulnerable areas.

Now that the Heartless has no feet, it seems like all bets are off. It's moving its remaining parts in legitimately deranged ways that make it obvious that nothing resembling physics apply to it at all, if they ever did. One of its claw-hands spins around it in a full circle, and Cid dives forward to avoid the claws, but the fist itself still catches him in the side and knocks him over.

Then its remaining hand winds up high, high into the air, pointing its claws down toward you at an angle... and you realize that even if Sora  _ wasn't _ behind you in need of protection, your body is too messed up for you to dodge.

All you can do is try to block, knowing full well it won't save you.

...You guess there are worse things to die for.

* * *

For some reason, you find yourself thinking about the time you and Sora watched the fireworks together.

You were both seven years old, you think; it was a little while before your birthday. Sora was staying over at your house for the night, since his aunt had to go to some "art" thing that didn't let kids in, and back then she still trusted your Mom to make sure Sora didn't stick a knife in an electrical outlet or run around with scissors or drink the stuff under your sink - still trusted her to not be your Mom, basically.

The two of you had been running around on the beach playing tag. The beach near your house was probably the worst beach on the whole island, since people kept dumping all their garbage there instead of just going another half mile up the road to the junkyard, but when you were kids you thought it was almost cool because there was always new stuff to play on.

Boats with holes in the bottom and busted furniture, big pallets of wood and sheets of metal you could slide down if you were careful not to let it cut you up... there was even part of a jungle gym there once, for some reason. Probably the casualty of some life-shatteringly messy rich person divorce.

There was this one month where you kept finding marbles in the sand and kept them in the box under your bed, and Sora found that stupid necklace he's always wearing, and there was a pair of binoculars that worked well enough even if it didn't focus, which served you very well over months of adventures until it finally fell apart in your hands, which was fine anyway because you made friends with Kairi just a couple weeks after that, so who knows if you even would've needed binoculars anymore?

At least they were gone before you outgrew them.

Anyway, you were playing tag and looking for a treasure - well, Sora wanted to play tag and  _ you _ wanted to find a treasure, because even though you liked your marbles better than Sora's necklace, you were smart enough to know it wasn't how much you like something that decides how good of a treasure it is, and you also wanted to make sure Sora didn't find a better treasure, so the best strategy was to do both at once.

(Plus, the way you remember it, you were also feeling pretty stir crazy, and it wasn't  _ that _ bad to get to run around.)

It was kind of fun back then, playing games with Sora. The rules always evolved when the two of you played together, becoming infinitely stupider and more complicated as the day went on, often to the point of being totally broken and making a lot less sense than when things started. It's one thing when you're just trying to hit the ball with the stick, but if you get ten whole points from running to the palm tree before he can catch you, then what's the point of even staying in the shadow of the TV tower?

You came up with a lot of stupid rules about tag on a beach full of junk as you went along. You couldn't get someone if they were hiding in the boat, and if you had a seashell you were immune to tagging until he pried it out of your hand or dumped sand down your shirt, and halfway through you tried to jump out of the hole in the boat and surprise Sora into dropping the conch he found somewhere (the lucky bastard), but he thought it was so funny that he wanted that to just be how you tag someone now.

So that's what you did. You ran around like that for hours, since your Mom was asleep on the couch and nobody cared about making you come in for dinner. You broke open a coconut and kept playing, even as the sky darkened and the stars came out.

Then, suddenly, there was a loud bang, and you thought the world was ending again so you pushed Sora down on the sand and tried to cover him with your body in case the exploding drops of black tar started falling from the sky again; it's not like he wouldn't die a few minutes later anyway, but that looked like such a specifically horrible way to die.

Until then, you'd never understood what it was like to want to protect something.

But Sora just pointed up, grinning, and you could see colorful bursts of light reflected in Sora's wide eyes. "Fireworks," Sora called them. You didn't have fireworks on your... on your where-you-came-from, and people didn't usually do that on Destiny Islands, either, but one of your neighbors had made them and was setting them off in his yard a couple streets down.

You don't know how Sora even knew about that. Maybe his aunt told him, or maybe someone else did, before you were there. They weren't great fireworks, apart from that first one, and they mostly didn't go high enough for you to get a great look at them through the trees, so you helped Sora climb up on the roof so you could sit there and see them better.

"It's my first time seeing them, too," Sora said, leaning on your arm a little, and something felt weird in your chest, like you were maybe going to die if there ever weren't fireworks anymore, so you leaned over and tagged Sora again, and then Sora tagged you, and then you tagged Sora, and you kept going until you were both giggling too hard to do it anymore because it was all so,  _ so _ funny.

And then there was one more big firework like the first one, and you and Sora tagged each other at the same time as it burst like a balloon full of a thousand shooting stars.

...And then it was over. You sat there for probably a couple minutes but it felt like forever, waiting to see if there'd be another firework. And there wasn't, and it wasn't fair, you were fine before it happened, and now it was over and you didn't die but you wished you'd died so much that you said it out loud.

Sora must've thought you were serious, because he gave you a weird look and said his Mom and Dad were dead, and you didn't want him to tell you what to do so you said lucky them, and he said really, they died in a boating accident, and that was why he lived with his aunt.

You told him your Dad died when the world ended, but sometimes your Mom said he got eaten by a monster and sometimes she said he drowned in the dark outside the world and sometimes she said it was you who did it but you don’t know why.

Sora said he heard his aunt say on the phone that she didn't want him, and you said your Mom hit you when she was drunk, which was always, and Sora looked at you Like That again and said if you jumped off the roof then he'd jump off the roof, too.

But you had something to protect now, so you said let's just go to bed, and he hugged you again like he still thought this was serious, and you tagged him again, and he tagged you back, because somehow the joke still hadn't gotten old.

You were actually getting tired, though, and he probably was too from the way he yawned, so you helped him climb down through your window. You didn't have any clean pajamas left and Sora's bag was still in the living room with your Mom, so you got under the covers with your regular clothes still on, and you turned off the light, and it was just you and him in the dark. For all you knew, everybody else in the world was dead and gone forever, and that was just fine as far as you were concerned. Your knees were touching.

Sora pushed his forehead against yours, and said that together you could probably figure out how to make a firework yourselves, if you wanted. Then he tagged you again.

Tag, you're it.

Tag, you're it.

Tag, you're...

Anyway, your Mom woke you up in the morning with a pitcher of freezing water, laughing so hard there were tears in her eyes as she rambled on about how this proved you were fairies because you probably fell asleep from so much, well, the same kind of thing she always said you and Sora were doing.

The water was new, though, and it would've actually been really funny if Sora hadn't started crying and screaming that she was a bad person who should be nice to you, and you had to go walk him home before it stopped being funny to her. And of course you got hit later, and you never brought up making fireworks to him, and he never brought up making fireworks to you, and you never found a treasure, and a couple months later, Kairi was there.

* * *

And that's it. Drop the curtains, roll the credits. No need to wonder why you're thinking about it, because you won't be around to think about it for long.

You wonder if they'll save him. You wonder if he'll understand, because you sure don't, but maybe that's just another thing that doesn't have to matter anymore.

The metal claw in the sky begins its descent.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hex here. Just wanted to say, this is the second-longest fight scene I've ever been involved in writing, and it was really grueling, and it just makes me wonder... how the fuck did the guy who wrote the web novel Worm do those book-length kaiju fights? Is he insane? Was on he drugs? What drugs were they, and where can I get them?


	7. Starting From Zero In Another World

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Us: the chapters will be shorter now! :)
> 
> Also us: BUT MAYBE THEY COULD TALK ABOUT METAPHYSICS AND GAY FRIENDSHIP FOR SEVEN HUNDRED HOURS
> 
> By the way, the reason Cid is specifically kind of an older middle-aged man here is because 1) he seems to be in Kingdom Hearts, and 2) it's complete bullshit that Cid was allegedly that young in FFVII, who are they trying to kid?

You take a breath, and try to be okay with dying...

...And then, suddenly, Sora is standing in front of you, raising his keyblade up like he's going to try to block the Heartless's dive attack.

You blink. Try to process this new information.

Then you force yourself the rest of the way onto your feet, raise your sword to the heavens, and brace yourself.

The claw-fist comes crashing down like a meteor, and it slams into both of you just as hard. The twisted claw-blades shoot right past your weapons, and you can feel one of them slice through your shirt up near your left shoulder... and the rest of the fist clangs mightily against your sword and Sora's keyblade. The impact forces both of you back, sliding dizzily across the cobblestones.

But you're alive, somehow, and so is he.

"Come on, Riku, pull it together," Sora says as the fist pulls away and you struggle to stay upright. He glances at you and smiles, and something feels weird in your chest. "Giving up isn't like you."

"...Right," you say. "Sorry."

Something flashes bright red in the distance, up on top of a crumbling roof.

_ "Flare!", _ somebody unfamiliar yells, and the sky lights up with crimson. A wave of heat washes over you instantly, like you blinked and went from an autumn night to a summer day, and a roaring streak of flame lances down the street, trailing spirals of hot light like a bundle of fireworks. It slams into the Heartless from behind, and a second later the other flames do, too, bursting into even bigger waves of fire and smoke and heat.

The Heartless rocks back and forth in the air, stunned, as a good third of its back glows bright, the metal impressively super-heated. And this, then, is followed by a sudden hail of gunfire, every shot sloughing off bits of pliant half-molten steel.

**[FLAY THE INTERLOPER]**

It roars furiously, turning to face its new attackers, seemingly forgetting about you entirely despite its grudge.

Now that the light and flames have faded away, you can actually see who _ did _ that. It's Yuna, or rather, it's Yuna who's... carrying the Duck from earlier on her back. His staff is still glowing with that fierce red light, while Yuna continues to rain bullets down on the Heartless.

"I'll go on the offensive! Make sure nothing gets through!", Yuna shouts. The Duck quacks incomprehensibly and hops down off her back, plopping ungracefully onto the rooftop before scurrying across it in your direction. Yuna finally jumps off the roof, landing _ very _ gracefully on the street near Aeris and Cid and switching to her white mage outfit. The Duck tosses himself carelessly off the edge toward you, slowing his fall somehow with a wave of his staff.

He turns toward the Heartless, which is focusing on Yuna for now, slamming the butt of his staff into the ground, and you suppress the urge to shiver as a thick wall of ice crystals rises up from the street, siphoning the heat out of the air. The wall just keeps growing until it's legitimately huge, at least fifteen feet high and probably a couple feet thick, while somehow still just transparent enough that you can kind of tell what's happening on the other side.

You try to stand up properly, like... _ all the way _, but immediately a wave of dizziness washes through you and you stumble back onto your knees, breathing hard. You feel completely pathetic, and as far as you can tell no one who knows how to heal is on your side of the Heartless at all.

"Riku, are you alright? What happened to you, anyway?" Sora turns away from the ice wall, frowning anxiously down at you. You just shake your head; you don't even know where to start, and you're still mostly struggling to absorb the fact that you didn't die.

...Holy shit, you almost died, didn't you?

Sora extends his arm down toward you, probably expecting you to pull yourself up with it, or maybe to slap his hand away and call him gay, but you don't really have the mental energy for either of those things.

You almost _ died _. It was going to smash you flat, and you never would've gotten to hang out with Sora again, never would've had any of the adventures you still want to have, never would've gotten to hear him laugh at your stupid sarcastic jokes ever again.

Meanwhile, while you're busy freaking out like a useless piece of garbage, Sora gets down on his knees in front of you... and wraps his arms around your shoulders, for some reason.

"You're gonna be okay, alright?", he says, and you should really push him off you and go drown yourself in a toilet or something, but your body is still too weak to do it.

A couple seconds is okay, right? That won't make you _ too _ much more of a bad person than you already are, will it?

On the other side of the ice wall, you can blurrily make out shapes that are probably Yuna and Aeris shining with an enormous light. Some kind of weird white pulsating geometric shape forms in the air, and then for a few seconds Traverse Town looks like it's seeing its first ever sunrise.

You wince as the light bleaches the color out of everything. The huge wall of ice shudders, suddenly, and water immediately starts pooling at the foot of it as it slowly loses height.

And then it's over, and there are afterimages dancing around your eyes. The Duck melts his own ice wall with a long jet of flames from his staff, and in the distance you can hear the sound of screaming, twisting metal.

**[GIVE THEM BACK GIVE THEM BACK]**

**[IT TAKES AND IT TAKES AND IT TAKES]**

"Come on! This way!", the Duck quacks. His voice is the worst.

Sora awkwardly slings your arm up over his shoulder and strains his way up onto his feet; with his support you can finally kind of stand and walk, although not very well, and you stagger along together while the Duck walks in front and keeps an eye on the Heartless, which has slumped over eerily, like it's losing its will to fight back.

It's... wow. Maybe some of it's because the Duck already softened the Heartless up, but after whatever Yuna and Aeris did, it's a real mess. Its torso is jagged and pitted and pocked and ugly, and its remaining hand is torn and battered and maybe even a little bit melted.

You really shouldn't, after it nearly killed Sora _ and _ you, but... some part of you can't help but feel a little bit... sorry for it.

The Duck brings you to Aeris, who's breathing hard and clinging to her stomach with one arm, but still holding her staff upright in the other. She immediately starts channeling another group heal, but this one feels strangely more effective than the last, and you can't help but wonder if maybe she's focusing more of it on you.

"Riku, I am really, _ really _ sorry," Aeris says.

"It's... fine?" You honestly have no idea what she has to apologize for, and you're not particularly interested in investigating, either.

"Guys, what happened?", Sora asks.

"Nothing," you say. "Just... a lot of combat." He nods slowly, but he looks like he doesn't quite believe you, which is stupid because you aren't even hiding anything right now.

Bit by bit, you can feel your strength coming back, and you think you could probably stand without Sora's help now, although some ugly part of you doesn't really want to.

And then maybe the most terrible roar of the whole night tears through the air, literally shaking the ground with its fury.

**[IT ALL HAS TO DIE]**

**[DIE WITH US]**

The Heartless rears up, casting off its despair, and its final hand rises in front of it, the metal twisting and warping all on its own again. Its fingers stretch and flatten and lengthen into a nest of huge blades, and the claw-strips fan out into a ball of spikes, like a steel pufferfish.

Can it even _ survive _ doing that to itself? That seems like nearly as much damage as you all inflicted on the limbs that are dead now.

"Guys, be careful," you say. "I think it's trying to take us down with it. Don't be reckless." You're not sure exactly what makes you so sure of that... but you're sure of that.

But before anyone really has time to be careful or to not be careful, Leon and the Dog soldier leap down from one of the rooftops at the same moment. The Dog falls with his shield underneath him, slamming it into the side of the Heartless's head, and while it's distracted Leon plunges his gunblade down into that razor-sharp nest of death that used to be a hand, weaving impressively through the blades and spikes. He drives the blade home, and his momentum carries him all the way to the ground, spearing the hand half a foot into the shattered cobblestones.

"Get clear!", the Duck quacks again, and Leon obeys impressively quickly, yanking his sword out and leaping away. The Heartless's many spikes keep the hand firmly in place. And obeying was definitely smart of him, because a second later the Duck yells _ "Meteor!" _

For some reason Aeris flinches next to you, but you're too busy looking up to the sky, where a bright orange light is spreading in the sky like a miniature sun... And then, with the scream of burning ozone, a beach ball-sized hunk of molten stone drops from the stars, slamming into the grounded hand in a plume of smoke and searing slag.

This time, you don't even hear that horrible sound of twisting metal. The smoke clears, and the hand is just _ gone. _

All that's left is the torso. It turns, slowly, facing the Duck... or really, facing all of you.

It doesn't scream, this time. Its horrible, grating voice is almost quiet.

**[COME AND SLEEP WITH US]**

And then the sound of twisting metal fills the air. Strips of steel peel away from its torso in thin repeating strips, opening it up almost as if for ventilation, and inside there's nothing but perfect darkness, a darkness so deep it's almost dizzying. The strips of metal thin out and lengthen into more blades and spikes, until the whole thing is one massive bundle of sharp edges, and the slits all over it belch strange acrid black fumes. It's almost like smoke... but not quite.

"Nobody touch that smoke," you say. "Don't breathe it in, either." You don't actually know what the hell it does, but you get the feeling you're all a lot better off never finding out.

"Whoa, it's just a tube now," Sora says, because he's Sora.

"Yeah, an awful, flailing tube that kills you," Leon mutters from the other side of the Heartless. And he's right. It sure is flailing. It's like an inside-out flying blender from out of a sentient kitchen's worst nightmares.

...Maybe Aeris's spell hit you even harder than you thought it did. Your thoughts are starting to get a little bit delirious.

"Goofy, get over here," the Duck quack-shouts irritably, and the Dog, who you guess has the most unfortunate name since names were invented, runs over immediately.

"Donald, you're still okay!", he says, like he can't quite believe the Duck isn't dead.

"Of course I am! Don't be silly!" The Duck waves his staff angrily at nothing in particular. "Stop screwing around and let's finish it!"

"Uh, gawrsh, okay then," the Dog says, almost obediently, and you fight down a sudden, inexplicable urge to tell him to lay off his friend already, can't he see he's too gentle for that?

The Dog holds his shield up toward the Duck, who channels some kind of weird golden energy into it until some kind of glowing yellow sigil crackles to life on its surface. The Duck slumps over a little, breathing hard, and the Dog charges the Heartless without another word.

"Let's go, Cid," Aeris says from over your shoulder somewhere. "We'll follow him up."

The Dog leaps into the air, putting his shoulder into his wild shield charge, and he crashes into the Heartless with impressive force. As soon as his shield touches it, a massive eruption of crackling golden lightning arcs out from the Duck's sigil, viciously lashing at the Heartless's spikes and actually melting some of them right off. The Dog runs away immediately afterward, his shield fading back to normal, covering his mouth with his sleeve to keep out the dark smoke.

Aeris fires a series of light rays off, pounding into a single point in the Heartless's torso over and over until the metal is glowing and soft, and as soon as she finishes, Cid rushes in, springing up at an angle to drive his spear deep into the weakened metal. It's the first hit he's landed that seemed to actually accomplish anything, but it's a good one. He leaps away with another one of those impossible bursts of speed, landing clumsily on one knee back at Aeris's side and letting out a breath he must have been holding.

A swarm of icicles suddenly lance through the air; the Duck is still catching his breath, so you assume that's Yuna. They slam expertly into the ventilation slits in the Heartless's armor, freezing a bunch of them shut, and like Cid did for Aeris, Leon follows them in, delivering several vicious gunshot-accompanied slashes to the frozen areas, some of which crack and partially shatter. You guess freezing things can make them brittle, too.

Leon escapes, shielding his face with his sleeve just like the Dog did, and the Heartless, overwhelmed, actually falls from the sky, clanking into the ground and shuddering wildly.

"Sora, let's go!", you say. Sora glances your way, almost looking surprised. Then he grins and gives you a confident nod. You have no idea how he's mustering that, but you'll take it.

Together you rush in, and you hold your breath like Cid just to be safe, hoping Sora is doing the same. The two of you leap up onto the Heartless's body where the lightning shield charge melted away some of the spikes, running across the damaged vents that are only barely expelling smoke anymore.

And together, with timing so perfect you're almost impressed with yourself, you each drive your weapons deep into each of its eyes. You pull them back out, still excitingly in sync, and hop back off, sprinting back toward your friends. You consider not looking back for a second, just to be cool, but no, you'd better keep on taking this seriously until you're sure it's over.

The Heartless convulses. Dark smoke rises from its body, no longer from the vents so much as from the metal that's beginning to disintegrate, and plates of armor begin to fall off, clanking heavily to the cobblestones. Underneath the armor is just more and more darkness, so deep it seems like it might go on forever...

...And maybe it's just your eyes playing tricks on you, but you'd almost swear that somewhere deep, deep inside that darkness, as if from a million miles away, you can see the distant twinkle of stars.

Then it's over. The smoke rises into the air, a long seething plume of death, and the giant Heartless is finally gone.

* * *

It's... it's over. It's over, and nobody died.

You watch as everyone celebrates, and you feel... weirdly excited, somehow, that you actually did something that _ helped _ people. It feels good, having even the slightest ability to cause change in the world, especially for the better.

You've done more good while not technically existing than you ever did back when you were flesh and blood, and you're strangely excited about that, because, well... maybe you _ don't _ have to be the same as you've always been. Maybe you can finally be something else.

_ ((((do not give us cause to hope)))) _

Sora and Riku finally collapse from exhaustion, sitting down together off to the side from everybody else. Sora smiles at you, and you smile back. Then you turn around, preparing to go see what the others are doing. You can talk to Sora later, when he won't be put on the spot about explaining all of this to Riku.

Yeah. You can just... interact with Sora at a less Riku-intensive time.

Before you go, though, you glance over at Riku, and you say very quietly, so quietly that Sora definitely won't be able to hear...

"...If you asked me out, I'd say no, because you're mean and you don't even _ regular _-like me."

You drift off toward the others, and then you freeze, feeling something that's kind of like hairs standing up on the back of your neck, except that you're not sure your hairs are made of real hair anymore.

Did you just... think about saying no to someone as if that's something you could really do? How is that even possible? Maybe things really _ will _ be different now.

...Why does Riku think Sora wants to date you, anyway?

Anyway. Yuna is busy healing Aeris, who looks like it's taking all of her willpower not to curl up in a ball and cry. The red roots in her stomach are churning horribly, like they're trying to eat her alive from the inside out, but Yuna's healing does seem to be calming them down, if only very slowly. Leon is standing guard nearby, pacing back and forth; you can't see his face through that mask, but even his posture is oozing awkwardness.

Cid seems to be going off to escort the Duck and the Dog... Donald and Goofy, you think... back to where they came from. You really want to follow them and listen in on their conversation, because they're talking about gummi ships.

You don't really know _ much _ about gummi ships - you supposedly rode one on the way to Radiant Garden, but you were really small and all you remember about it is putting your arms around somebody soft and furry - but you know that gummi ships can take you to another world.

Would Sora want to go to another world? Would he want to go home to your own world again, if you could somehow find a way to bring it back?

It seems that Donald and Goofy's ship broke in some way, and Cid's going to take a look at fixing it. You're able to follow them back without really stretching your connection to Sora very much - now that there's a huge hole in the wall and you don't have to go around it, this really isn't all that far away at all. It feels strange; after all the trouble that detour gave you, this seems like it ought to be a journey that lasts for miles.

Their ship is... a mess. You remembered it being pretty badly damaged, and you were right, but it's damaged in a weird way. It seems like gummis can't really be destroyed; instead, they just... break apart into smaller gummis? So the ship is missing some pieces, and some are scattered all over the place, and there are patches of tiny gummis here and there from where a block must have gotten broken up.

You really have no idea how any of that works, but it does seem to be how it works. How do people even build or fix gummi ships, anyway? Is there some way to fuse the gummis together? Surely they can't just be carved out of huge gummis like statues and then thrown away if they break down too small. That would be ridiculous, right? So... do they melt together, somehow? Can they be welded like metal, or is that silly too?

The engines are completely ruined. When the ship was smashed nearly in half, they must have crashed hard into the ground, because they're scattered into cute little piles of colorful goo cubes. The ship's whole back half and most of its right side is completely destroyed. As for the cockpit, it looks... _ fixable, _ and that's the best anyone can say about any of it.

Cid is telling them that some of this stuff could be rearranged if they're fine with having a worse ship, but he can't do anything about the wings and the engine. He'd let them use his parts, but they're the only ones he's got, and he's not handing them over without collateral. The Dog doesn't really understand the concept of collateral, and when Cid explains it to him, the Duck tries to use the _ Dog _ as collateral, but Cid isn't having it.

The Duck is pretty upset that they can't get back offworld, because they're looking for the king and for keyblade wielders. He starts a little argument with Cid, who argues back that they've found their keyblade wielder at least, he's right here in town.

That's a little bit worrying, honestly. What do they want with Sora? You have trouble thinking any servants of the king of Disney Kingdom would want something bad from him, but it's still uncomfortable not to be sure what's going on.

(The Dog, meanwhile, is just kind of watching the argument, clearly overwhelmed. You feel bad for him; you feel like you've been in his position plenty of times, watching two way more assertive people have it out over something you're involved in as if you're not even there.)

Eventually, Cid brings up the possibility of all three of them taking the ship to Disney Kingdom together and making the swap there, if they compensate him for his effort, but after they discuss the resources involved for a while, it turns out they won't actually have a good enough ship to make it to Disney Kingdom at all.

Other ships from Disney probably won't be coming by any time soon either, because they're throwing all of their resources into searching for the king. So, basically, the Duck and the Dog are stranded here.

The Duck is really angry about being stranded. Cid reacts to all of this sort of weirdly and hesitantly, and you get the feeling you're missing something. Then he suggests they all pool their resources to make a ship that belongs to everyone, at least temporarily. Then they can take the keyblade wielder and do whatever they want, as long as they bring both him and the ship back in one piece.

(You're glad, at least, that Cid is concerned enough about Sora's wellbeing to bother putting in conditions about him.)

The Duck is still fuming, though, and he lets slip that it has something to do with someone named Daisy still being at Disney Kingdom. Cid is a lot more sympathetic to this than you expected, and a lot more than he lets on in any normal way, but he clearly doesn't actually see any easy solutions to the problem.

The Dog thinks they should just take his offer, and the Duck is clearly not happy about any of this, but he finally agrees.

...You're starting to feel weird thinking so much about other worlds, so you decide this is a decent time to wander off and see what the others are up to.

_ ((((disgustingly fragile)))) _

It's exciting to go on an adventure, you guess, which is actually a very new emotion for you, but you've already seen so many other worlds, and at this point the idea of travel just makes you feel anxious and small, because every time it means leaving everyone behind.

You also feel weird about this Daisy person. Was that the Duck's girlfriend? His wife, maybe? Either way, she was clearly someone he loved. What would it be like if you had someone you were in love with, and you had to leave them behind? Can you really even imagine how that would feel?

...To tell the truth, you can't even remember Aqua's face anymore, and even if you could, the butterflies didn't really survive Riku making fun of you about that all the time, even though you're pretty sure he never actually believed you really felt that way. You're not even sure if Riku thinks _ anyone _ really feels that way, and you don't want to find out.

If you loved someone as much as you're supposed to when you marry them, wouldn't there be nothing in the world that could possibly wear it out?

You're not sure if you've been imagining yourself having butterflies again because you miss feeling something, or if you've just been telling yourself that you're imagining them because you don't want him to look at you like you're someone to feel bad for if he doesn't have butterflies, too.

Ugh, but you don't want to think about stuff like _ dating _ right now, either, because thinking about dating means thinking about growing up, and every time you think about what happens when you all grow up, you come to the same conclusions.

You and Riku are going to jointly be Sora's best "man" as he marries... well, you're thinking either a girl who plays sports or a boy who's involved in amateur TV, but either way it'll be someone very well-adjusted. Riku will be drinking by then, so he'll get into a fight at the wedding, and you'll probably cry backstage and have to tell everyone it's because you're so happy.

A couple years later, Riku will marry a woman with a lot of tattoos. He'll be an okay dad, but his kids will be mean to Sora's kids, and everyone will be a little disappointed that they're not friends.

As for you... You really, really hope you'll be able to grow up. You're going to try, you really are, but you've never really believed you can do it.

You keep thinking about how last summer you wanted to try to get a summer job so you could contribute to the raft-boat more, even though you didn't really _ agree _ with the raft-boat, and the fish market was the only place that was hiring, and your first day there you ended up panicking and giving everyone fish for free after someone yelled at you and you gave him a fish to make him stop yelling at you, and then other people were around and you had to give them fish too.

After that you couldn't come back, and your grandma had to pay for the fish, and she was very nice to you about it, because it was okay if you weren't ready, but you think pretty much everybody else your age could've done that kind of thing, and you can't actually imagine a version of yourself that ever could.

And... maybe everybody's like that, but what if you really _ can't _ ever take care of yourself? What if you can't ever do a job? Are there jobs you can do even if you can't do anything? You wonder what happens when people don't change the way they're supposed to. Can that ever really happen? Would you be the first person it ever happened to?

God, you'd have to become a completely different person to become anything that could possibly get married to anyone, even a 50-year-old man who wants to marry any 20-year-old girl, or a woman who wants to marry any woman at all.

...But... maybe things really _ will _ be different now.

_ ((((even if so // certainly not because it has earned a reprieve)))) _

* * *

Wow, so... after hearing a bit more of what happened while you were out, you really did come pretty close to real actual death, didn't you? And so did a lot of people. Various friends keep on being amazed to each other about how "we didn't lose anybody this time," and you're sort of just doing your best to process it.

Actually, no, it's more like you're doing your best to _ not think about that stuff. _

You're wondering... is it actually like you to get so serious when everything gets bad, or have you just been desperate not to be useless like you were last time? What does it even mean for something to be like you or not like you to do? Isn't everything like you to do if you do it?

Everyone's milling around, discussing town repairs and Heartless and how relieved they are that nobody's dead, and you're just sitting on a patch of relatively intact cobblestones, kinda hanging off Riku's arm like a spider monkey, which is pretty like you to do. Riku must also be having a weird experience of being alive right now, because him actually _ letting _ you use his shoulder as a jungle gym is definitely not like him at all.

...Are you going to become the sort of person who's good at things? Is Riku going to become the kind of person who doesn't think hugging makes you "gay"?

Why would it be bad to be happy, anyway?

Eventually, Cid and the duck man and the dog man come back from wherever they wandered off to, and Cid comes over to talk to you for some reason.

"Hey, keyblade kid and edgy kid. Bad news. You can't live in the workroom anymore."

"I don't think we ever _ did _ live in the workroom," Riku says, shrugging. You have no idea how he's being so calm about this! Doesn't he want to not be homeless?

"What? How come?" You try not to sound too anxious or upset, but you're probably not doing a great job of that.

"'Cause there ain't gonna be space in there with me fixin' their gummi ship." He points to the duck man and dog man with his thumb.

"Maybe... maybe we could live _ in _ the gummi ship?", you ask desperately, even though you have no idea what a gummi ship even is.

"Nope. Mr. Vampire Fetish here would just make it crash itself into the wall, guaranteed." Riku looks offended, but you still don't understand.

"Huh? Why would that happen?"

"It's a _ gummi ship," _ Cid says, as if that explains everything, and when that's clearly not helping you, he rolls his eyes. "They navigate by thoughts and feelings. If you're in that cockpit, half the goddamn things going through your head wind up in the navigation system."

"So what, you think I want to die?", Riku asks, obviously annoyed.

"What's going on, anyway? What _ is _ a gummi ship, and why does it have to get fixed in the garage or whatever?"

"In the _ workroom," _ Cid says firmly. "Damn, you really are from some backworld shithole, aren't you? Gummi ships are damn near the only reliable way to travel between worlds, if you wanna call that reliable, which I certainly don't. And these two yahoos got theirs smashed to bits by that oversized hunk of steel we just got done putting down."

"Hey, who are you calling yahoos?", the duck man asks indignantly, but Cid doesn't even dignify him with a response.

"Okay, uh, sure, that makes sense," you say, feeling really helpless for about the tenth time tonight. "I just... really don't want to be homeless?"

"Why would you be homeless, exactly?", Aeris asks, suddenly emerging into your field of vision.

"Because... the garage is-"

"Workroom," Cid grumbles.

"Because the garage room is full of a spaceship, or something?", you finish.

"Cid, did you not explain this to them?", Aeris asks, narrowing her eyes. Cid looks away.

"Lotta ground to cover," he says evasively.

"Cid! Come on, really?" Aeris shakes her head and then smiles at you, clearly a little bit exasperated. "Okay, no one has to be homeless. Leon and Yuna already offered to let you two stay in their guest room for a while, if you want to."

You're definitely embarrassed about how obviously your face must be lighting up right now, but you're too relieved to dwell on it for long.

_ "Somebody _ was supposed to explain all of this," she says, glaring at Cid again, "You know, so nobody was _ panicking _ about being _ homeless?" _

"Oh, because that old bastard Cid's the only one acting like a goddamn moron today, is that it? Just what in the hell were you thinking, putting yourself through so much shit during that fight? You're damn well lucky you're _ walking _ right now, after-"

_ "The point is," _ Aeris says loudly and very finally, turning back to you and Riku, "You guys still have options, okay?" Cid growls something nasty under his breath and spits in the street, then stalks off to who knows where.

"Okay, listen," Riku says slowly. "I'm not trying to trample on anybody's generosity, but I'm going to be clear about this. I am _ not _ in favor of living with them, not even in the short term."

"Riku, seriously?", you say, feeling a sort of quiet, nervous despair wash through you. "You think being around some people you're annoyed at or whatever is worse than sleeping under a tarp in a trash house and dying?"

"Nobody's going to _ die _ in a trash house, Sora, you don't have to be so dramatic about it," Riku says, but no, you're just not having this right now.

"No, I'm gonna be dramatic! I think not having a solid roof to sleep under is pretty dramatic, okay? Was today not crappy enough for you or something? You have to make it even worse for me than it already is?"

You... maybe said a lot more just there than you meant to, and even if you did _ mean _ most of it on some level, you feel guilty about it immediately. Riku blinks slowly, and then he looks down at the ground off to the side, staring at a patch of damaged cobblestones.

"...Okay, okay," he says finally. "Sorry. I'll... I can deal with it, I guess." He sounds so unhappy about it that you kind of regret it, though. Maybe you're the one who's being unreasonable, here. A whole lot of people don't have a roof over their heads, and most of them are alive, and at least some of them seem to be with their families or whatever.

"I mean... I dunno," you say hesitantly. "You don't have to-"

"No, cut it out already," Riku says before you can finish. "You're right, you know? Obviously you're right. But I want to be looking for other options as soon as possible, okay? That's my condition."

"...Sure, that's fine," you say, feeling very, very, _ very _ tired.

"Alright then!", Aeris says awkwardly. Whoops, you had almost forgotten she was even there after how intense that exchange was. "I'll just go and let them know that, then!" And she leaves to do it immediately, which you guess you can't really blame her for.

"...Well, _ we're _ in top form today, aren't we," Riku mutters bitterly. You don't have much to say to that, so you just shrug. "Hey, are you ever going to put that thing away?"

"Huh? Oh, whoops," you say, realizing that you actually do still have the keyblade clutched in your free hand. "I didn't even notice I still had it out. That's... kinda funny." You take a deep breath and let the keyblade dissipate again, ignoring the tiny spike of anxiety that shoots through you as soon as your hand is empty.

Riku gives you a long, appraising look, and you get the feeling he doesn't particularly agree that anything about this is funny. His sword has been gone pretty much since right after the sirens shut off and it became clear there weren't any Heartless left to fight.

"Yep, that sure was a keyblade," the duck man says totally out of nowhere, and you sort of half-flinch in surprise. Where has he been lurking since he dropped out of the conversation, anyway? "What was your name again? Sora?"

"Uh, yeah," you say, kind of surprised he was paying that much attention to you through all of this.

"I'm Donald," he says, "Donald Duck. I'm the Court Magician of Disney Castle."

"Whoa, that... sounds like a big deal?", you say, because it does. Donald nods smugly.

"It sure is," he says. "And this here is Goofy. He's captain of the Royal Guard."

"Wow, that sounds like also a big deal," you say, and Donald shrugs. Goofy, meanwhile, emerges from somewhere off to your left, scratching his head in embarrassment.

"Well, gawrsh, I don't know about _ that," _ he says, which seems almost weirdly modest to you, but maybe that's just because you're comparing him to Donald. "It's nice to meet you, Sora!" He reaches down toward you with a gloved hand, and it's weird enough to think about shaking hands with a dog man that it takes you a second to actually understand what he's going for.

"Yeah, you too," you say awkwardly, shaking his... hand? Paw? It seems like something in between. "Oh, and this is my friend Riku."

"Sure is nice to be remembered," Riku says irritably. Goofy goes to shake his hand too, though, and after a second or two of deliberation he sighs and shakes it.

"Anyway, Sora," Donald says, shoving Goofy out of the way for no clear reason, "We have a _ lot _ to talk to you about."

"Uh... you do?", you ask kind of dumbly. You're having a hard time imagining how you'll get through another serious conversation right now, honestly. Exhaustion is hanging on you like a bunch of way-too-heavy blankets, and you mostly just really want to replace it with some actual blankets, heavy or otherwise.

"A-yup," Goofy says. "It's important!"

Cool. That's great. It's so great to hear that right now, at this exact second.

"Hey," Riku says suddenly. "Can you maybe lay off him for two seconds? It's kind of been a hell of a night."

"I don't remember anybody asking for _ your _ opinion," Donald says, his duck feathers ruffling visibly, and you can feel your already rock-bottom expectations for this situation sink another six inches down under the street.

"Donald, Goofy!", Aeris says suddenly, and you try super hard not to gasp at _ another _ person just materializing from over your shoulder. "Come here for a sec, I want to ask you a few questions about your ship."

"Uh, gawrsh, we were kinda in the middle of somethin'," Goofy says, but you can already tell he's given in. How exactly did a guy with that personality become captain of anything, let alone captain of a Royal Guard?

"Guys," Aeris says patiently. "Anybody you could possibly want to talk to will still be here tomorrow, and I can just about promise we'll all be a lot more useful with some sleep in us, too."

"I don't know what part of _ important _ you people can't understand," Donald quack-mutters angrily, but then he lets out a weird duck sigh and waddles toward Aeris. "We'll talk later, keybearer. Don't go anywhere."

"Have a nice night, fellas!" Goofy waves cheerfully, and then he's going and gone, too.

You take a long, deep, kinda pitiful breath, and let it out real slow.

"...Well, thank god for Aeris," Riku says, and you just nod sleepily.

"I think I wanna sleep, like... for a year," you say, leaning sort of absentmindedly against Riku's shoulder.

"Sounds like a plan," he says, and he doesn't even push you away.

* * *

** **

So, despite your objections, you move in with Yuna and Leon's guest room... where "moving in" means that you put Aeris's spare toothbrushes in a completely _ different _ stranger's bathroom. You guess you should probably just try to be grateful the process is that simple... but you're not.

Leon and Yuna show you to your new room, which is okay, as far as rooms go. You're not sure what you were expecting, but it's just a bedroom. There's a lamp, empty dressers, a window, a nightstand, a closet, a bed. Nothing about it is particularly attractive or unattractive. It just is.

"...Oh yeah, and whatever's in the cabinet on the left side of the stove is _ not _ a free-for-all, alright? If it's in the fridge and there's no note, go for it, but the cabinet is off-limits." Yuna pauses mid-sentence to glare at Leon for some reason. " _ Some _ people have trouble remembering that, but I'd like to believe you guys can handle it."

"Right, one last thing," Leon says suddenly. "We're going to be four people to one bathroom here, so if you plan on spending an hour and a half in the shower, maybe do it _ when everyone else is asleep. _ And definitely not at eight in the morning, when people are trying to gear up to go on patrol."

"You do realize civilized human beings can't take a shower in forty seconds, right?" Yuna says, rolling her eyes. "Some people actually use _ soap." _

Oh, good. This is a great start to having new housemates. Great call, Sora, nobody's going to regret _ this _ course of action!

You tune out Yuna and Leon's bickering almost instantly; you can't even imagine caring about paying attention to that. Sora is staring nervously at the bed.

"Uh, somehow I was picturing _ two _ beds," he says quietly. "Or at least bunk beds. Or even a bed that was bigger than..."

"Looks like a queen, maybe," you say, although that's being a bit generous. "So anyway, squatting sure is looking better by the second."

"It's really _ not, _ Riku!", Sora snaps, or at least, it's as close to snapping as Sora is capable of.

You get it, is the thing, or you sort of get it. This is just something Sora does. He's _ really _ determined for this to be okay, like he's always determined for everything to be okay. But this time, you're pretty determined for it to _ not _ be okay, so you can _ leave. _

Maybe if you look around the room long enough, you'll see evidence of rats, or find a secret door to someone's stalker love shrine, or Sora will trip over a dildo and get uncomfortable. You just have to keep your eyes open, and...

Wow, you sort of weren't expecting to actually find something, but tonight is just full of surprises.

"Sora, there's a _ bloodstain _ on the floor over there," you say, "And not even, like, a small one! How do we know they're not ax murderers? Or at least _ sword _ murderers? They both have swords, Sora, you can't pretend I'm wrong about that."

"Hey, Yuna," Sora asks suddenly, like a horrible traitor, "Is that a bloodstain on the floor, or... I mean, what happened there?"

"Huh? Oh, jeez," she says, "Forgot all about _ that _ thing."

"Yuna's _ cousin _ stays here from time to time," Leon says, sounding almost as disgusted at the thought of Yuna's cousin as you feel at the thought of being in this house for another ten seconds. "She's... _ very energetic. _ Especially when she's drunk. And on one very special night, she was very energetic a little too close to the lamp."

"Uh huh," you say, extremely unimpressed by this ax-murderer logic. "Convenient that that's exactly what an ax-murderer would want us to think."

"Riku, cut it _ out," _ Sora whines.

"Alright, that's enough, I'm leaving," Leon says suddenly. "Just gonna... go get something to eat."

"From _ which cupboard?" _, Yuna asks, a dangerous edge to her voice.

"I don't know," Leon says smugly. "I guess you'll have to wait and see."

Leon walks out the door without giving her a chance to debate this. Yuna looks back at us, then at the door Leon just left through, and then she's gone. Maybe they'll kill each other and you and Sora will finally be free.

"...Riku, do you not _ want _ this to work out?", Sora says. You try not to wince.

"Of course I want it to work out," you lie through your teeth. "I'm just trying to make sure nothing terrible happens."

Why is this happening, anyway? Didn't you already have this argument an hour ago, and it ended with both of you more or less on the same page, or at least in the same book and not angry?

"Hey," Sora says, hesitating for an uncomfortably long time afterwards, "Are you, like... okay?"

"Sora," you say, definitely not like a bad friend, "How did you know people were being attacked? You promised you'd explain."

Sora hesitates even longer this time, and you hate how genuinely worried you're starting to feel.

"...Okay," he says slowly, "I know this sounds crazy and random, but I think Kairi told me?"

You open your mouth. Then you close your mouth again. Sora doesn't seem to be able to meet your eyes.

"...Keep explaining," you say finally.

"Ever since we left Destiny Islands, I've been having these weird... I dunno, visions maybe? At first I thought they dreams, but they're definitely happening when I'm awake, too. Kairi's always in them, except she's kind of like a ghost or something? I guess we hang out? I thought it was nothing at first, but now she's telling me things I couldn't have known otherwise."

Well, that's the most terrifying thing you've heard in your entire life. This is definitely where you wanted tonight, or any time ever, to go. It's great, and also fine.

"How many times has this happened," you ask flatly after another long, weird pause.

"Uh, I think about three," Sora says sheepishly.

Wow, you know what? You're actually kind of really mad about this.

"And you just didn't tell me. _ This _ has been happening, and you didn't think it was worth _ mentioning?" _

"Riku, that's not fair," Sora says quietly, except you're pretty sure it is. "I didn't even know this was real at first! Not until a thing I saw on TV when you were laying on me or whatever actually ended up being real in real life. Why are you mad, anyway? Shouldn't you just be glad she's-"

"I wasn't _ laying on you," _ you say sharply. "What the hell are you even talking about? That sure _ sounds _ like a dream that for sure couldn't have happened." Sora sighs and has the audacity to roll his eyes a little.

"Whatever, that's not even a little bit the point! I was _ saying, _ shouldn't you maybe try to be glad Kairi's not dead or something? Or... not totally dead, or... I don't know, that she seems like she exists somehow, at all? Don't you want her to be okay?"

"Of course I want Kairi to be okay!", you snap, crossing your arms low on your chest, and it’s not about Kairi, you _ know _ it’s not about Kairi, but maybe if it’s about Kairi you have a leg to stand on. "You had all this weird inside knowledge and you didn't even bother telling me so we could put our heads together and figure out something to do, but somehow _ I'm _ the one who doesn't care?"

"I do care! Knock it off," he says, sounded hurt enough that you almost feel bad about it. "I... I don't know why I didn't say anything. I mean... why didn't I? Maybe part of it _ was _ about... no, but it's more like..."

He trails off, having delivered exactly no useful information. Then he sighs.

"I mean, you're right," Sora finishes eventually, looking down at his shoes. "You're right, though. It's supposed to be the three of us all the time. I don't... I don't know what I was thinking."

...Wow. You're kind of impressed at how completely goddamned impossible it is for even one person in the universe to understand you even a little bit. Why do you even try to make sense to people, anyway? It never gets you anywhere, not even with Sora.

"...I'm going out," you say, before you say anything you'll regret for a week.

"Why?", Sora asks. His voice is uncomfortably small.

"Because I could've died," you say, as if that's obvious or has anything to do with this, except as soon as you say it, you realize it _ is _ obvious, and it _ does _ have something to do with this. You just... hadn't noticed, somehow.

"I know," Sora says.

"...Somebody once told me I was going to be special," you say, not really knowing where you're going with this or why these specific words keep following each other. "Somebody who would've known. So I... I can't die here, alright? Not yet."

"...I could've died, too," Sora says, and you can't even think of the last time you could describe his voice as 'bitter. "Even if I'm not special."

"Sora, I wouldn't let you die," you say, because you really want to believe that's something you actually have some power over. "But I don't think you get to say you're not special anymore."

And you turn around and leave, just like that, retracing your steps through Leon and Yuna's house, out into the same chilly evening air that characterizes every second of Traverse Town's existence. You look out across the square, toward CID'S REPAIRS and ITEM a hundred or so yards opposite you, past weird neon signs and a tree that shouldn't exist.

...You think maybe you've never understood your own side in an argument less than you did in this one. Somebody ought to give you a medal, or maybe just put a bullet in your head. After tonight, you're pretty sure you've earned both.

* * *

** **

You stare at the empty doorframe for a few seconds, wondering if you should, like... go after him or something, but no. You're really annoyed and maybe a little bit hurt and you don't think any of this is actually gonna help and you don't even know what's wrong with you - with either of you - so you just flop face down on the bed, feeling vaguely miserable about everything.

There are footsteps outside the door, and for a split second you think maybe Riku came back, but...

"Hey," Yuna says. "Are you and your friend, uh..."

"We're great," you say into the bed. "Everything's great."

"...Right," she says eventually. "Well, you can have the room for tonight, and tomorrow you can decide who's squatting and who's getting murdered."

"Cool," you say, not really able to be gracious about this even though you really ought to be, and you give her the most reassuring thumbs up that you can manage while being sad and prone and not even looking at her.

A few seconds later, you hear her leave, and you roll over, still extremely generally annoyed. You sit on the edge of the bed, looking at all of the super normal furniture (and the super normal bloodstain), and then you come to a weird realization.

"...Hey, are you, like... here right now?", you ask the empty air, staring at the low nightstand that there's definitely room for a person to sit on.

"Yeah, I'm here," Kairi says from two inches to your left, and you kind of twitch away to the side reflexively. "Sorry, sorry," she says sheepishly, and puts a few more inches between you, although that really wasn't necessary.

"Were you here the whole time?", you ask, already embarrassed. She's quiet for a long moment, so you guess that means she was. "It's fine," you say before she can answer. "It's probably really boring being a ghost."

"It's not so bad," Kairi says. "Well, no, it's pretty bad, but it's also not as bad as it could be."

"Hey, can you move stuff around? Like a... uh, that one kind of ghost that sounds like a chicken?" Riku would know what poultry ghosts were actually called, but Riku isn't here right now, because Riku sucks tonight.

"A poltergeist?", Kairi says, her brow furrowed a little.

"Yeah, probably! And like... do you want me to get some books for you, or something? Can you still draw like this? Do you want me to ask Leon and Yuna to leave the TV on?" The list of things you can imagine a ghost doing isn't super long, but you kind of owe it to her to make it as long as you possibly can.

"I don't know," she says slowly. "I don't know about any of that. I don't think I could move anything, but I've been feeling a lot more real lately, so maybe I should try?"

Kairi reaches for the pillow. Her hand stops when she gets to it, but it doesn't budge, and when she pushes a little harder, she slips right through it and falls over forward onto the bed. She picks herself back up quickly, looking a lot more embarrassed than you think she really needs to.

"I feel like... like there's something missing," Kairi says, staring intensely at the pillow. "Do you mind if I keep trying?"

"You don't need my permission," you say, even though saying that has never actually affected any of her behavior in all the time you've known her.

"Oh yeah," she says, "I guess not."

...Well, that's new.

Kairi tries it again. It doesn't work. Then she tries it a third time, and a fourth, and a fifth, getting visibly more frustrated each time. _ She doesn't even look like Kairi anymore, _ you think to yourself, and then you feel really dumb because of course she does, she looks exactly the same.

"Come on, you stupid thing," she mutters, reaching out again.

The pillow moves a couple of inches.

"Whoa, I did it!", Kairi says, while you try _ super _ hard not to freak out. "Did you see..." She trails off. "Oh," she says distantly, "I'm you."

And she is. You're alone in the room now, as far as you can tell, but you can hear her, and you _ definitely _ didn't push that pillow over on purpose, but your hand sure is hovering next to it.

You feel incredibly weird. Disoriented, almost, like you're just a little bit underwater, except that's not really it, either. _ Displaced _ somehow, like you're watching yourself over your own shoulder, except you're not, you're right here in your eyes, where you belong.

So it would be super bad if you just screamed, right, or got up and ran out of the house and just kind of kept on running until this wasn't happening anymore? That would make you just the worst friend ever, wouldn't it?

"Maybe this is good," you say extremely distantly, and you're sort of relieved at least that your mouth moves when you tell it to. "I mean, it's better, right? If you wanted to, uh... go to a playground or something, you could totally do that, maybe. This is okay. You can eat an ice cream cone."

You have absolutely no idea what you're talking about, but it's hard to make yourself stop. You kinda feel like if you stop proving you're still in control of yourself, you really will start screaming.

"Oh god," Kairi says, and she sounds almost as scared as you feel. "I... I'm sorry, I'm really sorry, I won't do it again! Is this... is this what it's like for you to be scared? It was like this the whole time?"

"I don't... know what that means," you manage somehow, and then suddenly it's over, and Kairi is sitting next to you again, and you let out a huge sigh of relief and flop onto your back, staring up at the ceiling.

"I swear I won't ever do that again," Kairi says quietly, staring down at her hands like they still belong to somebody else.

"...Actually," you say, "Can you try doing the same exact thing you did last time, the same exact way?" You hate asking that. Like, you actually hate it, a lot more than you probably should. But there's something you have to know _ right now. _

"I... I can try," Kairi says. "Why, though?"

"Just do it," you say, a lot more sharply than you meant to. Kairi nods, biting her lip, and then...

And then she disappears, and you can just _ feel _ her, somehow, occupying exactly the same space you are, except she's about a tenth of an inch off from you in a direction you never knew existed and can't even imagine describing.

You focus really, really hard on not moving, and not doing anything. You imagine yourself having total control over your body, like you obviously should, and you hold the image in your mind... and you do _ feel _ her trying to move you, somehow, like a tiny phantom weight nudging the insides of your muscles...

But this time you're digging your heels in, and ghosts don't weigh much of anything, so it isn't even hard. Or maybe other ghosts _ would _ be stronger, and this is just Kairi?

"It's not working," Kairi says.

"Yeah, I'm blocking you," you say. "Are you trying as hard as you can?"

"Um... no?", she answers hesitantly.

"Can you, then?" Kairi nods, and you do feel her pushing harder... but only barely. It's like being pulled on by a chipmunk instead of a butterfly. That might be a big deal if somebody isn't a whole human person, but luckily that's exactly what you are.

"Yeah, that's it," Kairi says. "I'm doing my best, but..."

And you're nervous, but you're determined to still be a good friend, so you steel yourself anyway.

"Okay," you say, taking a deep breath. "Okay, I'm gonna let you do it now."

"Are you sure?", Kairi asks, and you just nod, because it's a little much to have to say it in words, for some reason.

You're scared - terrified, really - but you relax as much as you can and just... let her push you out of the way.

It feels cold and weird, like this time you're the one who's not quite lined up with yourself right. Cold, and weird, and kind of... empty.

"Are you me now?", you ask, but you already know _ you're _ not you anymore, so either you're Kairi or you're nobody. It takes you a second to realize you didn't actually move your mouth, even though you're pretty sure you heard yourself talk.

Meanwhile, your body is staring down at itself, breathing fast and kind of erratically.

"Is this what it's always like being you?", Kairi asks, and she sounds like she's right on the edge of panicking. "Everything feels so _ sharp. _ Being happy... being sad... How do you do it? How can you stand it? Wouldn't you just go crazy?"

"I dunno," you say. "Do ghosts not feel things right, or something?"

"No," Kairi says, and she sounds extremely sure of that. "No, that's not it. If anything, I'm feeling a lot _ more _ lately. More than I even could've imagined."

"Oh, well... that's the worst thing I've ever heard," you say, and she doesn't respond. "Uh... can I try one more thing before we switch back?"

"Okay," she says after a short pause, "But just one."

"I want you to try as hard as you can to keep me back out while I try to get back in," you say, and you _ think _ you can actually feel _ her _ becoming more nervous, somehow, like there's another you somewhere else and you can distantly feel him freaking out.

"...Alright," she says finally. "I'm ready."

So you push. You push hard in that direction you still can't describe, and you meet absolutely no resistance at all. One second you're not quite you, and the next, everything is normal, and Kairi is sitting next to you on the bed again.

You feel so relieved to be back in your own skin that you can't really be that annoyed with Kairi, but...

"Hey, why didn't you push? I thought you were gonna try to keep me out?"

"I did try," Kairi says, looking down at the ground like she's embarrassed. "I tried really, really hard. You actually pushed so hard that it hurt a little bit."

"Oh crap, are you okay?" _ That _ wasn't supposed to happen. You didn't even know ghosts could _ get _ hurt!

"It's fine," Kairi says, smiling awkwardly. "We learned a lot!"

"Yeah, no kidding. So... you can't actually make me do something I don't want to do, and if you somehow did anyway, I could make you stop. Okay. Yeah... Yeah. We can deal with this."

"Uh huh," she says, almost brightly. "You're totally safe, I promise."

She doesn't sound too unhappy, but you feel a little bad anyway, because... well, it's _ your _ body, so it's only fair, but Kairi is seriously getting the short end of the stick here.

"Is there... anything I can do? To make up for hurting you, I mean?"

Kairi thinks for a couple of seconds.

"...Could you lay down and close your eyes?"

You'd be lying if you said that wasn't kind of nerve-wracking at the moment, but you kinda think you owe it to her, so you slowly flatten yourself back out onto the bed, your legs still dangling off the edge, and you shut your eyes.

Nothing happens. You're about to ask her what she wanted you to do this for, but...

* * *

You open your eyes, blinking away sleep. Wait, what? When did you fall asleep? You were hanging out with Kairi, and it was really scary and weird, and then... you can't remember anything after that.

You sit up kind of groggily, looking around the room, and oh. Okay. This is definitely not Leon and Yuna's guest room. You've only ever seen one room that was as white as this one.

"Cool, it worked!", Kairi says happily, still sitting next to you on the bed, except it's definitely not the same bed. She stretches, and then plops down onto the bed on her back, kinda wiggling around a little.

"Where are we?", you ask, although you do recognize this place.

"I put you to sleep so we could talk inside a dream again. Or... maybe it's more like a memory? I'm not really sure. I wore myself out a lot testing stuff with you, and it's a lot easier to exist in here."

"Wow, that's a really creepy way to say that," you mumble uncomfortably. "Hey, so... can you touch stuff and read and whatever in here, then?"

"I'm not sure," she says, looking around the room like she's afraid to try and then find out she can't. "Maybe I could read in here, if it was a book I've already read."

"Well, if you ever wanna do stuff here while I'm normal-asleep, go ahead. I can just finish sleeping in here." You really could, too. This bed is huge, and it's a whole lot more comfortable than the one in the guest room.

"Um... you're taking this awfully well, suddenly," Kairi says, almost guiltily.

"I mean... things are probably a lot worse for you," you say. "Being a ghost sounds pretty bad, actually."

"...I don't know about that," Kairi says, wrapping her arms around herself like she's cold, or maybe like she's trying to protect herself from something. "Not if being you feels like that all of the time."

You really have no idea what to say to that. You consider mentioning that _ you _ don't think being you is weird, but that seems so obvious that it's dumb, and also what does that even mean?

Instead, you turn a bit and look out the big window with the white curtains. Huh... there's another balcony all the way across the courtyard outside, and there are some other kids there. You think they're maybe a little older than you, although not as old as Leon or Yuna or even Vanille, a girl and a red-haired boy and a blue-haired boy.

They're kinda shoving each other around, like they're wrestling or... hey, actually, what _ are _ they doing? You can't see too clearly, but it's way too gloomy and overcast in Kairi's memory today for people to be showing that much skin.

"Oh! Oh wow," Kairi says suddenly. She leaps up from the bed and yanks the curtain shut. "Uh... wow, I guess there's no getting away from _ that, _ somehow. That's, uh... that was X, a girl I used to know, and _ her _ friends. And they all... they just really like each other a _ lot, _ and that's great but we _ probably _ shouldn't look at it, okay Sora?"

"Uh... sure," you say, blinking a little. You're not sure why Kairi is blushing, but whatever.

"Hey, I _ can _ touch stuff in here," she says a couple seconds later, fiddling with the curtain some more until every last sliver of window glass is covered up.

Well, it's cool that other people are really good friends or something, but...

"...The three of us aren't that good of friends," you say, a lot more sadly than you meant to. Kairi's head whips around, and suddenly she's blushing again.

"I think it's okay that we're not that good of friends!", she says quickly. "I don't think _ most _ people are that good of friends, especially when there are more than two of them!"

"No, Riku had it right," you say, looking down at the bright white floor. It's so stark that your shadow looks strangely dark against it. "I should've told him about it the first time you... uh, happened. I think... I was probably really selfish, wasn't I?" Kairi sits back down next to you.

"...I don't know," she says quietly, "But I'm kind of happy you didn't."

"Really?", you ask. "How come?"

"Well... I guess because... well, we couldn't just _ talk _, right?" She's kind of stumbling over her words, like it's taking her a lot of effort to actually understand whatever she's feeling. "You'd have to stop and repeat everything I said so Riku could hear, and it would be a lot of responsibility on you to speak for both of us."

"Uh, I guess that's..."

"And Riku would probably feel weird about it, because to him it would look like one person who was getting one vote and one person who was getting two. And we would feel like we were on one team and Riku was on the other, and that would be weird for _ us, _ and obviously weird for him too."

"Right, I-"

"And we might feel like we had to agree with each other, even if we didn't! Like, if Riku and I both wanted to be homeless and you wanted to live in a nice room with a bloodstain - which is just an example, because the room seems okay and being homeless sounds really bad."

"Yeah," you say, not bothering to try for a longer sentence this time, because she's still going at it. You can't remember the last time Kairi had this much to say all at once.

"...And... Riku would just get worked up trying to fix everything, and then he'd get mad when he inevitably couldn't do it, and then it wouldn't just be about wanting not to be a ghost anymore because being a ghost is bad, it would be about not wanting to be a ghost anymore so it wouldn't have to be Riku's problem."

You just nod, this time. It seems like she really needs this, for some reason.

"I like being by myself, actually," Kairi says. "Or at least I do when nobody can see me. I can just... watch people living their lives, and try to understand how they feel about each other. And I don't think... I mean, if Riku was there I would have to... well, he'd want to _ know. _ And I... And..."

She looks down at the ground. Then she looks at you.

"And I like being with just you, Sora," Kairi says quietly.

You have even less of an idea what to say to that than you do about the rest of it. That had never even crossed your mind before, and for some reason it's making you a little nervous.

"...I never really got to do that when I was alive," she says, and this time you get the feeling she's finally done.

Wow. What _ do _ you even say to that? Is this the right time for "you're probably still alive" or "you're definitely still a real person" or "whatever the heck is going on here, we'll find a way to get your body back"? Or would all of that kinda be missing the point?

"...You and me watched that movie the day before the raft, though, remember?", you blurt out.

"Right, because Riku walked into the door again and his mom wouldn't let him be around my grandma with his eye like that," Kairi says patiently.

"And, and we wrote that stupid science paper on the mana cycle together last week," you say.

"Because Riku had to do some other stupid science paper with _ his _ lab partner. And we would've all been lab partners, if the teacher had let us be a group of three."

Oh yeah, you remember that, actually. You got Riku to pinch you really hard so you could make yourself cry, but the teacher was not moved.

"We were only ever alone together because Riku _ couldn't _ be there," Kairi says. She sounds really tired. "We were never alone together on purpose."

You open your mouth, but you're not quite sure how to make sounds.

"You... don't like being with me and Riku?", you finally choke out.

"...That's not what I mean," Kairi says. "When everybody got dared to stay overnight on Skull Island, I had a cold and I couldn't go. During the sports festival we all did that obstacle course thing, but I couldn't be your partner anyway because it was boys versus girls."

"Yeah, because... it's supposed to be all three of us," you say. You really don't like how desperate you sound, and you're not even sure what you're feeling desperate _ about. _ "All the time. Except... when it can't be."

"Is that what you want?", Kairi asks.

"...That's how it should be, right?", you say eventually.

"Because it's okay if that's what you want," Kairi continues. "I just, um... think you might be the only one who wants that. Because I... I want to be alone together on purpose. And Riku... probably also wants to be alone together on purpose."

"He... does?", you ask, feeling extremely lost.

"I can tell he thinks I took that away from him," Kairi says, smiling bitterly. "And honestly, I think I kind of did."

"You didn't mean to," you say, before you can really think it over. Wait, shouldn't you have told her she didn't do that at all?

The thing you said is stupid, because _ obviously _ you should say that Kairi's got a really weird read on this whole situation, especially because out of everybody here, Riku was the only one who wanted to...

"...Oh," you say, plopping back down on the bed and staring up at nothing in particular.

"Sora?", Kairi asks.

"I think I might've wanted to reinvent the sports festival," you say, which doesn't make sense and she won't understand it at all. "Like, a double sports festival," you say, as if that'll clear it up.

But somehow, Kairi nods.

"It's always the three of us together, but... if can't be..." She trails off.

"Yeah, I... don't think I'm the same as X," you say awkwardly.

"To be fair," Kairi says, "I don't think most people are the same as X."

This... is kinda terrifying, somehow. You feel a little bit like a big hole in the ground is opening up below you, and you might fall into it any second now. It feels like this is how you've always done things, and it would be wrong to do it differently even if... even if you wanted to. Even if you might've _ really _ wanted to.

"Kairi, I... I'm not really sorry. I mean, I'm sorry to you because I suck, but I'm not really sorry to Riku because _ he _ sucks... but I also kinda suck to him. And there was, like... this thing Riku and I wanted to do a long time ago that we never got around to, so maybe I should..."

Kairi nods.

"Yeah, he'd probably like that," she says. "I'll stay out of the way, okay?"

"You don't..." _ have to, _ you start to say, but that _ is _ kind of part of the point, isn't it? Except saying that makes it sound less like how not everything goes with chocolate and more like how shoelaces aren't food. "You're not a shoelace, you're a gummi worm," you say, because you're very dumb.

"I don't know what that means," Kairi says, "But thanks, maybe? I think?"

"Hey Kairi," you say, yawning a little for some reason. "Is there anything in this town you want to do?"

She starts to answer, but all of a sudden you can't really focus on what she's saying. You feel super weird physically, like you've been up all day and night and you're suddenly crashing, or maybe like...

"I think I'm waking up," you say sleepily, and right on cue, the white room starts to disintegrate around you, falling apart bit by bit into confusing, jumbled shapes and colors that don't make a lot of sense.

"Sorry," Kairi says. "I think I have a good enough handle on this to know that I'm going to be okay, but... after everything I did today, I probably won't be coming back tomorrow."

"But I'll see you the day after?", you ask over the weird roaring sound of the world turning into mush. Kairi reaches out and grabs your hand.

"I'll try," she says, and you hug her, because everything's _ really _ starting to fall apart as you wake up, and some invisible temperature-less wind is trying to blow you apart, so you have to hang on.

"If you can't see me tomorrow, can you find something you want to do? And then the day after that, we'll do it together! Just us, I promise!"

"Yeah," Kairi says, smiling. "I promise, too."

And then you really are torn apart, and you fall for a long time through a narrowing tunnel of shapes you've never seen before and sounds you can't identify and colors that don't have names, and the ghosts of memories that belong to somebody else.

* * *

You wake up feeling heavy and a little confused, pulling yourself upright with a lot of effort. Mood-wise, you're still a little... like... _ oh, that happened. _ It's still scary, but...

Maybe change isn't always bad, right?

Sometimes it'll still be the three of you, probably, it's not like _ everything _ has to be different, but sometimes, maybe...

...You wonder what's in stock at ITEM.

* * *

** **

So it's been at least an hour, and the thing is, you didn't really go anywhere.

You spent a long time wandering around, aimlessly looking for something to do, and then you didn't find _ anything _ to do, _ and _ you didn't find Sora, which made sense considering he was probably still in that stupid house, but you had kind of hoped you would find Sora somehow anyway, because that way you wouldn't have to run into him in the house when you finally gave in and came back, which you still don't want to do but know will definitely happen anyway.

So Leon and Yuna aren't ax murderers. Okay? You get that. But they _ could _ be, maybe, even though they didn't go through with stealing Sora's keyblade when they had him two to one, and you couldn't bring yourself to leave Sora alone with people who could theoretically kill him or steal his keyblade, even if the odds of that were so low that you might as well be refusing to leave him in moderate danger just because he wouldn't follow you away.

Which was stupid, but all of this has been stupid, and you didn't even run into Aeris or anything, and sure, you could've probably gone by her house which is also probably where she works, but then you'd be the guy who showed up at her house for some stupid bullshit reason instead of just the guy who happened to run into her by mistake. Gunblade Douchebag already thinks you have a thing for her, and you don't want to make that even worse.

You wonder if you _ will _ get a thing for Aeris someday. You kind of hope you don't, because she's like ten years older than you and she's not creepy enough to not care, but it might be kind of nice to have an actual thing for somebody for once. It’s about time, really. You need a better place for all that energy to go than being a fucked up crazy person at your best friend whenever you feel bored or weird or frustrated, or whenever it's a day that ends in Y.

An actual thing would mean there was actually something you _ could _ get out of it, even if you probably never _ would _. There’d be a point somewhere in the madness instead of just some gross wild feeling like an itch under your skin that leads you nowhere and drags your friendships kicking and screaming into some volcanic trench at the bottom of the ocean.

But you didn't run into Aeris, and you still aren't running into Aeris, and you still aren't running into Sora, and eventually you think it's _ maybe _ been long enough that it won't look too pathetic if you turn around and go back in to get yelled at for ghosts, or not liking Kairi enough or... whatever the hell this whole thing was even about.

When you get back, the door is locked, because of course the door is locked, but you can pick it, and that'll probably be fine because they haven't kicked you out yet as far as you know. You head upstairs as quietly as possible, and immediately you hear Leon's voice from the other room.

"Sora, are you back?", he calls out, because you know... of course Sora would be gone, that's exactly what you needed.

"No," you say flatly, heading into the kitchen/living room part of the apartment, which unfortunately you have to pass through in order to get to the bedrooms.

"Oh, it's you," Leon says. "I guess that's what's happening now."

He's standing over in the kitchen part, washing some dishes in the sink. Yuna is hanging out on the couch watching an old episode of _ Waves of our Youth _, and you're pretty sure that logo in the corner is from one of Traverse Town's old channels. Well, it's good to know that only good things die with a world. You wonder if they run TV from dead worlds as some kind of bizarre obituary, or if people here are just so used to it that it doesn't even parse as messed up.

"Leon, be nice to him, alright?, Yuna says irritably, but she doesn't even turn around. You really want to tell her to mind her own goddamn business but you'd at least like to leave on your terms instead of getting thrown out on the street, so you just head for the guest bedroom.

Sora isn't there, because of course Sora wouldn't be there. Is he out looking for you, or did Sora just ditch you back, making it a solid two-way ditching? You're pretty sure you hate both of these options equally.

You shut the door behind you and lock it. Well. You're alone now. And you know better than to break something, but you kind of want to watch something be broken. Maybe you'll just get in bed and put your hand around your throat and pretend it's his.

"Hey Riku, is that you? Are you back?"

You jolt upright, slamming your hands onto the bed to either side of you, and look frantically around the room, feeling like somebody caught you doing something fucked up even though you weren't doing it yet. But Sora is still gone, even if you _ are _ hearing his voice. Maybe everybody's a ghost now.

"So I'm going insane," you mutter, although it's probably more likely that Leon and Yuna have an attic.

"Nope! I'm on the roof," Sora says, and you finally look out the window. Sure enough, he's dangling down in front of it, upside down.

"...Do your new best friends know about this?", you ask.

"Not if you keep it down," Sora says brightly.

"I still don't want good things to happen to either of us," you say, "But I have to admit I'm intrigued by your decisions."

"Right? So come up on the roof with me!"

It _ would _ probably be fun.

"No," you say.

"It's a pretty good roof, Riku," Sora says, elongating the vowels in "roof" to make it sound more tantalizing. "Maybe there's a _ surprise _ up here! You never know."

"I don't deserve a surprise and neither do you," you say, but it's hard to keep a straight face through the whole sentence. Apparently it's hard for Sora, too.

"Guess I'm gonna have to bribe you, then," Sora says.

"What do you even have to bribe me with?"

"The surprise!", Sora says, as if that's a good answer.

"No deal," you say, shaking your head.

"Aw, c'mon, why not?", Sora asks plaintively.

"Because for all I know the surprise is that there's no surprise and I'll have come all this way for nothing," you say, although you really can't imagine that would actually be true.

"It's not nothing, because _ I'm _ on the roof, so at least you'll have come all this way for me," Sora says. Your face feels kinda hot.

"You're right. I at least know for sure that you exist on a roof," you say, trying very hard to sound normal. "What if I get up there and the surprise is you pushing me off to my death?"

"Why do you think I'd push you off the roof?", Sora says, raising his eyebrows, or maybe lowering them, considering he's upside down.

"You wouldn't," you say. "That's why it would be a surprise."

Sora's quiet for a few seconds.

"It's pretty cold up here," he says sadly.

"That's really not my problem."

"If you won't come up here, then I won't come back down," Sora says, resolute.

"This is also not my problem."

"You can die from being out in the cold too long, right? If you don't come up on this roof I'll die of, uh... exposure! And also a broken heart, and it'll be _ all your fault." _

"It'll be your fault, actually," you say, "Because you were stupid enough to stay out there even when you started dying. Also, it's not cold enough to die, especially for people without blood, you dumbass." Finally, a use for the one fact about people with blood you remember from middle school.

"You won't let me die, right Riku? Not when you could do something about it?"

God dammit, Sora.

"I'm going to punch you," you say.

"You're gonna come up here and punch me?"

"Yes, Sora, I'm going to come up there and punch you."

You finally drag yourself up off the bed and open the window the rest of the way. Wait, how did he even get up there? He clearly didn't do it from inside. Sora dangles his hand down and you take it, pushing yourself up off the windowsill, and then the side of the building.

Once you're finally up there, you lightly punch Sora in the arm, because after all that it would be messed up if you didn't, and once you're properly on solid ground Sora pantomimes pushing you off the roof.

"I'm not gonna die now!", Sora says happily. "And it's all thanks to you!"

"Nope," you say, "Now you have to live forever. We'll find you a vampire or something."

"Wait, but I don't even have blood. Don't they like, drink blood or something? Wasn't the whole point of vampires?" Yeah, that and bat-related stuff, you think, but there's no in bringing that up now.

"We don't know that. Who says our vampire knowledge is accurate? I just found out lions can drink from straws, I'm not going to question _ this. _ Maybe they just drink your light."

"I could live with that," Sora says. "Or like, un-live with it. After I got turned, I'd bite you too, and then we could be vampires together forever."

Well, he sure is in a good mood, isn't he? Maybe your time away from him really did do some good. It was enough for him to forget how much you ruin everything for a whole five minutes.

You're still not sure what the surprise was, though. Is there actually something happening up here? You look around, and oh yeah. There's a tied-off plastic bag sitting off to Sora's left.

"What's in the bag, anyway?"

"The surprise, obviously!", Sora says.

"Wait, isn't that one of the bags they use at ITEM? Where did you even find munny?"

"I told Leon I'm an orphan and you're the family I have left, and then he let me use the keyblade to open up a steamer trunk for him for 200 munny," Sora says without a trace of shame.

"He must've thought you were _ freshly _ an orphan, you idiot." Wait, what did he mean he used the keyblade to open up a steamer trunk? Did he just slice it open? You guess that _ would _ work, it just seems like the kind of thing _ you'd _ do, not the kind of thing other people would do.

"Hey, it's not my fault he didn't think to ask when I became an orphan."

"Well, great. Now we have to come up with a story for your fresh orphaning and remember to stick to it," you mutter.

"Ooh, we should be _ long-lost brothers, _ reunited by fate!"

"Have you been watching _ Waves of our Youth _ again? You remember where the long-lost brother storyline _ went, _ right?" You sure remember. Sometimes you wish you could forget, but _ Waves of our Youth _ has a way of sticking with you.

...You wonder why _ Sora _ remembers, though.

"Hmm, you're right... it's not all that believable. Anyway, here!" He picks up the bag and tosses it to you. "It's your surprise!"

"I don't want it," you lie.

"Yeah you do!"

"No I don't."

"If you don't open that bag _ right now, _ I'm gonna jump off the roof and break my neck bones and die," Sora says smugly, and okay, fine, you'll laugh at _ that. _ Sora does, too.

You shrug and tear open the plastic like it's an extremely low-effort Christmas present. It's...

...Oh. Suddenly you feel like you're going to cry. That's unfortunate.

"Where did you get fireworks?", you ask.

"I got 'em at ITEM! I know we wanted to make our own someday, but I didn't really think I could learn how to do that by the time you got back, so... we can still do that later," Sora says.

"...It's not against the law for them to sell this? To you?" Then again, aren't the ducklings technically children, too?

"I don't think this is the kind of place where too many things are against the law," Sora says, shrugging.

"Guess this place really is messed up," you mutter, looking down at people milling around in the town square so Sora can't see your face.

"...I do like being with just you, you know," Sora says.

"You have terrible taste, then," you say, but Sora keeps going.

"That's what you were mad about, right?", he asks. You just shrug. You don't know if it is, but you also can't say that it isn't. "I think that's dumb and you kinda suck, but Kairi said I'm not very good at, uh..."

Oh, of _ course _ this is about goddamned Kairi, somehow. Of course it is.

"Kairi the ghost?", you ask, and Sora glares at you.

"I don't know any other Kairis," he says, kind of angrily. Your face is burning, and you're clenching your fists so hard that it hurts.

"Is she here right now?" You still don't know if you believe any of this crap, but it matters if he believes it.

"No! Because I'm being with just you right now! On purpose! I'll hang out with just her later, on purpose. We're gonna go do a thing the day after tomorrow, maybe." He's staring at you like he just cannot believe what an asshole you are, which is stupid, because you can definitely believe it, and he's not exactly being friend of the year right now either.

Well, whatever. You finally get what this is about, and you can't believe you were dumb enough to not see it until now.

"You're being nice to me," you say, very slowly, "So you can date _ Ghost Kairi?" _

Sora stares at you, obviously shocked.

"Kairi is my _ friend, _ and also a _ ghost _ ," he says, "But mostly my friend. And _ your _ friend! And my friend!"

"You're not going to be just friends for long if you're being alone together on purpose," you say, because you really are the worst.

"I missed you more, dickhead!", Sora blurts out, and you're surprised enough at having pushed him so far he used Grown-Up Words that it takes you a second to actually process them.

You look back down at the street, wishing he'd just pushed you off the roof after all.

"It's just... it's just, I was friends with just you before she was here," Sora says, a little too quickly. "I was never friends with just her, you know?"

"Can you please stop it?", you ask.

"...Why?", Sora asks back. And it's obvious, right? You want to pretend he actually likes you more.

"Because I'm the goddamn worst," you say.

"I mean, yeah, you're the goddamn worst, but you're also my best friend," Sora says. You... guess you'll take that.

"...Sorry," you say after a long pause. "For being stupid about all this." Sora stares at you like you just grew a couple of extra heads.

"Whoa, Riku, you feeling alright?", he says, smiling at least a little bit shit-eatingly, but you know him well enough to be able to tell when he's genuinely happy about something. You feel sort of bad that Sora is such a simple dumbass that he can be placated with the world's thinnest and most useless apology.

"Also, sorry I ruined fireworks again," you say, because if he likes it _ that _ much when you apologize, you might as well do it twice. Sora rolls his eyes.

"You didn't _ ruin fireworks _," he says. "Either time."

You're not entirely sure what you're supposed to do now, but you think hugging him would probably win you a lot of Sora points, so you steel yourself and awkwardly go for it.

Hugs are so weird. It doesn't seem normal, somehow, to be feeling other people in that much detail. You lean over and put your arms around Sora's back, wondering like you always do what the hell you're supposed to be doing with your hands.

Sora is warm, and breathing, and smaller than you. You hugging Sora probably isn't quite like Sora hugging Kairi, but he's a lot skinnier than he looks with all those baggy clothes, like an animal that's ninety percent fur. Sora clings back, because he's Sora. He bumps his forehead against yours, and you wonder if maybe you're gonna just die.

Sora laughs, or... you'd almost say giggles, actually, but also that's a stupid girly thing to call it, and you're kind of fucked up. Like, what, he's smaller than you, so now he's the girl of the situation? What does that even mean? Why is your brain such a pile of garbage?

"Fireworks now?", Sora asks, and you finally peel yourself away from him.

"Yeah, sure," you say.

A couple minutes later, you've set them all up in a line on the roof so you can launch them one by one without having to stop and reload; this way you can fire them all off once you get caught so they don't go to waste. You fish around in the bag for a while before realizing it's empty now.

"Did you even bring a lighter?", you ask, wondering if Leon and Yuna have one, or if you're seriously going to have to climb down off the roof and go shoplift one right here and now.

"No, I brought you," Sora says, and you immediately feel a little dumb for forgetting you can do that now, but it's hard to even remember what era of your life you're in, these days.

"Right, right," you say, trying to play it as cool as possible, which isn't very.

You lean forward toward the first firework, conjuring a little spark of dark fire while Sora hangs curiously over your shoulder to watch. There's not a whole lot of space on the ax murderers' roof, so it's not like you're exactly touching, but you're feeling a little crowded anyway.

The fuse burns quickly, and you both jerk back at the bang, which is a whole lot louder when it's a couple feet away from you instead of in your neighbor's yard a few streets down.

As for the firework, it's a _ lot _ better than the ones from Destiny Island, actually. There are lots of different colors, exploding out in star shapes that stay cohesive way longer than you think is actually reasonable. There must be magic in it, or something.

You and Sora look at each other as the sparks keep raining down.

"...I'm still it," Sora says.

"Still what?", you ask, even though you understood literally instantly. Your heart is pounding at the inside of your ribs a bit too hard for comfort.

"You know, in that game we played. When we were doing this last time."

"...Right," you say.

"I've been it the whole time, you know," Sora says, like he thinks he's very smart. He grins cheekily, but you think you can see a brittle thread of nervous energy under the surface.

"Truly a brilliant strategy, holding onto being it for _ seven years," _ you say, trying to sound deadpan. Why is he even telling you this, anyway? Obviously he should've gone for the element of surprise, and then pushed you off the roof so he could stay the winner permanently, and nobody would've had to deal with the consequences.

Sora just watches you, like he's waiting for you to say something else.

"...Cover your ears," you say finally, and you light the second firework.

It shoots up into the air, exploding into a long wave of blues and greens, and you look up at the sky together and watch. As the cracks and bangs fill the air, you vaguely hear Sora say something, but you can't hear him clearly.

"What?", you ask.

"...It's nothing," Sora says. He looks happy, though, and you can think of a couple things it was too long to be, so you guess this turned out okay, even if you didn't really deserve it.

Sora looks at you and smiles, and you realize that you probably look happy too, which is weird, because you're you.

_ "What the hell's... on up there, you... lunatics," _ Leon suddenly yells from underneath you, the roof muffling some of the words. _ "You're... the damn roof on fire!" _

"Light 'em quick, light 'em," Sora says, laughing, and you do, setting them off one after another. You look out at the sky and the town, and you realize there are people outside looking up, now, and people in other houses staring out their windows. The patterns kind of get lost when so many fireworks are going off at once, but it's really pretty, and the whole town is lit up in ghostly reds and yellows and blues and greens.

Once they've all settled and some of the onlookers figure out there aren't any more coming, the two of you climb back down through the window into the guest room, shutting off the lamp and hiding under the covers so if Leon busts in somehow it'll look like you were sleeping the whole time, and all of this was somebody _ else's _ sin.

"We sure have had a day," you observe, kind of surprised by how sleepy you are.

"Yeah," Sora says.

You both lie there for a while, thinking about it. You're sort of facing each other, so you can tell he's pretty deep in thought too.

"Hey, Riku," he says.

"Yeah?"

"Thanks for being here."

"Guess even the end of the world won't stop me from dragging you down," you say, laughing under your breath a little.

"I think it probably would've been pretty bad if you weren't here," Sora says.

"You probably could've managed," you say, but Sora shakes his head.

"I don't know about that," he says. "Maybe."

There's another long pause.

"Hey, Riku," Sora says again.

"Go to bed, Sora," you say, yawning.

"We almost died a bunch of times today," Sora says quietly.

"Sure did, buddy," you mumble. "Good times."

"It's just... that's not what happens every other day, right?" He has a weird look on his face that you can't quite decipher. "So it probably makes sense that we're acting all weird."

"...Yeah, it probably does," you say. You raise your hand and kind of awkwardly ruffle Sora's hair a little, and then you feel like you're _ definitely _ about to get crushed to death by a meteor, and you have to try really hard to resist the urge to hide your face under the covers for some reason.

You definitely wouldn't do _ that _ most of the time. Almost dying is pretty crazy.

"...Hey, Riku," Sora says one more time. You wait a little while for him to continue, but he doesn't. Then, suddenly, a quiet but very annoying snore rumbles its way out of his nose.

"Hey Sora," you say, "Wake up or I'll go in the kitchen and get a bunch of ice cubes and dump them down the back of your pants."

He doesn't so much as twitch, so you guess he must really be asleep. You reach out and ruffle his hair again, a little more confidently this time.

"I mean it," you say quietly. "I'm not going to let you die. No matter what."

And then you close your eyes and let all the day's stress finally slough away, drifting slowly to sleep while you listen to him breathe.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alright, that was a long one, but the next chapter is probably the end of this Traverse Town arc.
> 
> P.S. While X's identity is still not confirmed in canon, we're assuming she's Skuld for now but leaving it open enough that if we're proven wrong somewhere down the line we can probably still roll with that. Whoever she is, though, she's a legend and we support her incredible achievements in friendship.


End file.
